Journal: October 28th. Second thoughts on siding.

Johnny and George back at work.  I had expected praise aplenty for my excellent siding removal and clean-up efforts, but not a word was said, though great progress is being made on getting rid of all siding on northern walls. 

As I was now once again obsessing, I spent too much time  reading about how dreadful vinyl siding is for the environment.  This, of course, confirms my own feelings.  Who but a Lego master would want a plastic house?  George has explained to me many times that it would cost about three times as much to use wood, would be much more complicated and expensive to insulate, etc. etc., but I keep hoping we will figure out an alternative

I am so taken with the revealed bottom layer of clapboard, now a very aged, slightly rotting dark brown, I wondered if I could find such a color and this search for dark brown vinyl plunged me into a world of articles listing the seven or sixteen or four hundred and thirty-three reasons you shouldn't use vinyl siding.  Should I forget the whole thing?

Hoping for enlightenment, I drive to Northwest Siding for samples of dark brown siding, keeping my eyes open along the way for houses in darker tones.  I don't see any houses darker than yellow or light blue.  My internet researches have revealed that until quite recently vinyl faded rapidly, so light colors were the only ones available.  Now, they have figured out how to retard this fading, and are marketing darker colors, but they have not really spread to Sussex County.  Most houses I saw were in various hues of beige and yellow. 

I got the samples.  Realized that the brown, aiming as it does to look like natural wood was just too fake.  It's bad enough that I want to find siding that looks like painted wood--but somehow the fakery gets doubled if its siding that is meant to look like wood au natural --if that makes any sense.

So--the decision is made again.  Glacier Blue Siding (which looks like a dark gray) will be tacked over the aged brown wood.