I agree stone always looks heavier than brick and seems right on bottom. Personally I would stucco that small gable.

I think stone on the entire left side as you describe is a good idea. I am also not a big fan of stone above a large garage door again because visually (and in reality) it is heavy.

This is a traditional house design so the construction systems and materials should look like what they simulate.

If this were a real stone garage there would need to be a very large header over the wide garage door. It also appears that you have carried stone over an adjacent brick wall which would never be done in real masonry construction but I can't tell for sure without a plan.

You should avoid the appearance of masonry substituted for wood siding on a wood framed building as if such materials and wall systems systems were interchangeable.

Look at some real masonry houses and think about how they were built.

I have a simple suggestion:
Use Brick all over and stucco above the porch. Forget the stone.
RE columns:
I prefer the columns without the pedistals. If you do not use pedistals, it will be better if the columns are a couple of inches thicker.

Use brick and stucco. No stone.

The house is a little complicating. I can't tell where walls and roofs start and stop from the picture so it's hard to say where to put stucco and where to put brick. But do try to stick with only 2 materials, and choose between brick or stone - not both. The house calls for brick not stone.

Thanks everyone! We are trying to convince them to let us use Hardi board material above the porch instead of stone as we really don't want to use stucco. Would you recommend the Hardi shingle look or siding look or board and batten?
If we did this, would it look weird to only use it there?
Would you recommend something else instead?

Also, we plan to have white trim on the porch posts (square posts without large caps or bases like the plan has) and white on the front of the arched porch as well as around the windows. Would the Hardi need to match this white or would a neutral color look better?

We have also settled with using stone on the left to the end of the porch and brick on the rest. Would this be too busy with the addition of a 3rd material? We couldn't afford to do all stone, and would have to do all brick, if so.

Here is the side view of the front porch.

This post was edited by icanea on Mon, Aug 12, 13 at 15:19

I agree with the posters above that choosing two cladding materials max would be best. Skip the stone and do brick and stucco, unless you can afford a great deal of stone on all four sides of home. Perhaps brick and Hardi might work. Let see what others say after this is bumped up. I am not sure about the shutters. Hopefully the architects/designers on this thread who have already commented above will advise you on the shutters.

It looks like a nice house.

Carol

Thank you, Carol. :)
We couldn't afford to do stone on four sides of the home.
Here's the brick we've picked to give you an idea.

Very nice brick! Do you need the stone at all?

Carol

Hi again icanea

You asked above about what colour Hardi or stucco you should consider to go with that brick. My brick is a bit like yours with less white and perhaps ours is a bit darker red. I also have white windows. In case the colour of our board and batten gives you any ideas here is a picture of the back of the house.

Carol

Thank you so much, Carol!
What color is your board and batten?
I tried searching to see if you have posted pictures of the front of your house as I would love to see what you did, but the search function isn't working at the moment.
Could I also ask what size trim you did around the windows (if you remember)?
Thanks again!!

Hi icanea,

We used the Maibec board and batten on the upper level more or less, and brick on the bottom (part of our house is one storey and part is two). We did not use any stone, except the front steps are stone. Our front is not done yet, but I have linked a picture of the west side. The body colour (beige colour with grey undertones) is called Thatch and you can see it from the Cabot colours in the first link below. The grey trim around the windows was called a 2" X 4" (but is actually thinner and measures 1-1/4" by 3-5/16"). The trim style was called contemporary, although my house is not contemporary. The colour for the window trim was called Lamosite (grey) and it is a stock colour from Maibec. See the second link.for lamosite colour.

Good luck with your decisions. Exterior colours are hard. Have you considered going to a high end paint store and asking one of their colour experts? You could say you were trying to decide what paint colour to choose for the front door and/or garage doors, but wanted them to check the brick and siding choices too. That worked for us, plus we hired an online colour expert who for $20.00 helped us choose.

Carol

west side of house

http://www.cabotstain.com/colors-and-finishes/families/Solids-Colors.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Maibec siding colours

Carol, you are seriously awesome.
Thank you!
This is rough and the color isn't perfect, but what about something like this? I'm thinking above the porch could be hardi shingle with white trim like the windows and doors will have. Thoughts?

I would personally skip the stone also. The money is better spent on nicer trim details, imo

I sent you an email.

Carol

Icanea,

It might be easier for folks to offer their opinions on the house colours if you show the roof colour in your sketch.

Carol

Thanks, again everyone!
Here is the roof color: GAF/ELK Weathered Wood.
It seems less brown and more gray installed, but we don't have brick up yet to compare with, just the green zip board. :)