We're using a special insulated brand of siding called Craneboard that will dramatically increase our R value, making our heating system even more efficient. This, like pretty much everything else we're putting onto or into the house was exhaustively researched by us and recommended by Consumer Reports.

We would have liked to do wood siding, but we know from our last place that we're not good at finding the time or cash to paint when it's necessary, so low maintenance was a factor.

We did both breathe a sigh of relief that we like the color. After all the agonizing (and voting), it's nice to know that it looks good to us now that it's actually covering the house, and not just on a three inch swatch.

In the last year or so that we've been planning to build, we've done a lot of observation of other houses--to learn about styles and quality and stuff like that.One of the things we've noticed is that you can always tell a house where the owners thought a swatch LOOKED good, but then must have been horrified by what they ended up with. ("Pink! Why does it look PINK?? I thought it was burgundy!!!") It's not a pretty picture.

For the record:

The snow officially finished melting out of the basement as of April 29th. I was hoping we could make it to May, but we finally got some nice weather and that was the end of The Gravel Snowman from the Pit of Darkness.

Hey! Maybe now we can pour a floor down there!!!