The exterior of your home or building is just as important as its foundation or its interiors. That’s why so many people put such emphasis on finding just the right house siding for their home or building.
Exterior House Siding Ideas
These 50 exterior house siding ideas will help you see just what’s possible in creating a lasting, durable, and beautiful look for your home.
1. Natural Neutrals
House siding doesn’t have to be bold or bright in color to be attractive. Sometimes a neutral tone that suggests a natural wood color to the viewer can have just as powerful an impact. This home uses a crisp white trim to contrast the neutral tone of the siding, creating a classic and natural appearance at the same time.
2. Mix and Match
There’s nothing that says that you need to cover your home or building in one solid color or style of material. This building features three different siding types: a traditional lap siding, vertical shiplap in a natural stain, and architectural panels with contrasting trim to give it a modern edge.
3. Addition Appeal
Homes like this one, which feature two distinct buildings, look their best when the architecture is emphasized with different types of house siding. The main building features a contemporary architectural panel and trim, while the side addition uses a natural-looking vertical siding for an appealing contrast in color and style.
4. Natural Accents
Architectural panels can create a stunning, contemporary facade for any home. To keep the exterior from becoming too cold, however, warm, wood-look ship lap siding is used as accents around the door and window areas, creating an inviting appearance.
5. Windows to the World
Windows act as a house or building’s eyes in a sense, giving you a chance to see out, and others to see in. Windows that are too small can detract from the rest of the building’s appearance; these windows have been made visually larger by inlaying architectural panels into the rest of the house siding with a deeper, contrasting tone.
6. Warm Wood-Look Skirting
Two tone siding has long been a popular way to complete a home’s facade. This exterior takes it to a new level, mixing not only two colors, but also two styles of siding as well. The light architectural panels on the upper portion of the house contrast nicely the warm-colored, wood-look siding installed below.
7. Lots of Texture
Contemporary homes, with their clean lines and severe angles, sometimes need more texture in their facade to help bring them to life. This home uses not only different colors of architectural panels on its front to add contrast, but also a corrugated panel that contrasts both the smooth panels and the lap siding on the rear.
8. Planes of Interest
This contemporary house siding complements the lines of the home beautifully by using a contrasting color and shape of panel on the trim than on the rest of the home. Paired with the plate glass windows, it gives the exterior a lot of visual appeal.
9. Warm Roofing
The deep cool gray tones of this house siding is broken up by a warm, wood-look shiplap siding around the rooftop terrace, and on the underside of the soffit and roof deck itself, giving it an appealing visual contrast.
10. Subtle Changes
When changing the shape or size of the house siding, you can create a more subtle look by keeping the color the same throughout. This building features bricks, horizontal lap siding, and architectural panels all done in the same shade of gray for a cohesive look.
11. Visual Height
By changing the ordinary house siding on this outbuilding to an architectural panel above the door, it brings a visual boost to the height of the structure. This is further enhanced by using a matching panel on the soffits.
12. Board and Batten Beach House
While most people tend to use a variation of horizontal lap siding on their homes, some properties can use a board and batten siding instead to great effect. This beach home features board and batten in the same color as the horizontal siding on the main building for additional interest to the property as a whole.
13. Traditional Charm
Architectural panels aren’t used only on contemporary buildings. This traditional cottage uses them as a decorative element beneath the roofline. Done in the same color as the lap siding and matched with the same white trim, it adds subtle interest to the home.
14. Shingled Out
This stately home uses natural fieldstone on its columns. To match the texture and add some interest to the rest of the home, irregular shingles are used as a decorative element in the same color as the lap siding.
15. Beachfront Appeal
Beachfront properties need to match their surroundings in style and color. This home is sided in shingles from top to bottom, giving it a traditional appeal that matches its surroundings perfectly.
16. Trimmed Out Perfectly
Sometimes it’s not the house siding that’s the main attraction, but the trim that helps bring it all to life. This home utilizes both architectural panels and a heavy white trim to contrast the gray siding and give the facade a fresh, updated look.
17. Quiet Color
You don’t need to use a neutral on your house siding to get a subtle, understated look. This forest green home has just enough color to be interesting, but still has a traditional, classic style and look.
18. A Change of Direction
The lower section of this home features a traditional, horizontal lap siding. The upper portion features a wide board and batten, adding visual height and interest to the home as a whole.
19. Window Matching
The decorative features on this home make the most out of the size, shape, and placement of the windows. Architectural panels and trim mimic the look and shape of the windows where there are none, fooling the eye and giving the home added interest and style.
20. Prominent Trim
Keeping your home one color of siding from top to bottom may result in it losing some detail and interest. That’s why using a bold white trim can help make your siding pop, giving it a polished appearance.
21. Switching Up the Sides
The sides of this home feature a different type of siding then the front. Architectural panels keep the exterior from becoming plain, and help break up the long lines of the house visually, adding interest.
22. Textured Facade
To complement the fieldstone fireplace chimney on this contemporary home, a cedar-look shingle in a complementary shade is used to cover the entire exterior. The texture of the home siding balances the fieldstone and helps create a cohesive look.
23. Tone on Tone
You don’t need a lot of fancy siding or decorative options to create an appealing home exterior. This home uses a tone on tone effect between the siding and trim to create a subtle, warm appeal that invites the eye.
24. White on White
White can be very bold and crisp as a house siding color, particularly when it’s used over the entirety of the building, like this home features. The white on white look helps give this cottage a traditional, classic appeal.
25. Long Lines
This contemporary home makes a bold move by using two colors and sizes of lap siding moving in long, unbroken lines along its exterior. The warm, wood-look siding makes a welcome contrast to the darker,nearly black portions of the home.
26. Decorative Shingles
Most people are familiar with cedar-look shingles as having either a straight or an irregular edge. But, shingles can be decorative as well, with a half-round edge like the shingles lining the towers of this home.
27. Natural Appeal
Homes in a natural setting look best when they reflect their surroundings. This rural home does so by using irregular cedar-look shingles in a color that picks up the natural granite outcroppings nearby.
28. Multiple Looks
Sometimes it’s not enough to use simply two colors or two different types of house siding to bring a property to life. This home uses not only two colors, but also two different types of shingle in addition to the lap siding for a dynamic appearance.
29. Wood Look Siding
There’s something about the natural look of real wood, particularly for villas, chateaus, and other resorts. This home uses a wood-look cedar shingle and lap siding in the same warm color to create a relaxing and inviting appearance.
30. Mixed Buildings Mixed Siding
This beach property is made up of several buildings put together. By mixing and matching shingles with board and batten siding in the same color, it emphasizes the architecture and creates a cohesive look with its location at the same time.
31. Mixed Materials
You don’t need to cover your home’s exterior with one single material to have it look its best. Sometimes mixing a variety of materials gives you the look you’re after. This home uses traditional lap siding in a soft color paired with a skirt of field stone to give it some natural appeal.
32. Victorian Elegance
Victorians and other older homes utilize a lot of decorative siding features and colors to bring out their best. This home uses three distinct colors, as well as a mix of decorative shingles, lap siding, and architectural panels to show off its attributes.
33. Side by Side Siding
This property is broken in the center by a fieldstone chimney, which makes a natural dividing point for the siding as well. To the left of the chimney, traditional lap siding is used, while to the right, a shingle adds texture and detail.
34. Classically Cool
Sometimes less is more when it comes to your home’s siding. This property already has a lot going on with different roof lines and a large front porch. Therefore, a horizontal lap siding done in a cool, classic taupe keeps the property from becoming too busy.
35. Farmhouse Charm
When your home’s architectural style is both plain and defined, sometimes there’s nothing to do but to work with what you have. In this case, that means using a beautiful barn red to bring out the farmhouse-style appeal.
36. Upper Interest
It’s generally a good idea to draw the eye upward when making a statement on your home’s facade. This property does that by switching to a half-round shingle mid-way up the walls.
37. Textural Interest
This home has a lot of texture going on between the cedar-look shingles and the fieldstone used on the exterior. To counterbalance these, architectural panels make a beautiful statement in the center section.
38. Mixing Sizes of Siding
This home features a cool, subtle appearance for its exterior. In addition to the light blue color and white trim, it brings visual interest by switching to a thinner plank siding on the upper portion, mixing with a more traditional width below.
39. Subtle Tones
To draw the eye upward and make the most of this home’s height, a slightly lighter color is used on the upper story than that used below. The result makes the home look taller than it is, while giving it visual appeal.
40. Porch Appeal
A screened in porch can be an attractive feature on any home. This property makes the most of this by trimming out the porch in the same panels as the windows on the rest of the home’s facade.
41. Clean Contemporary
Many people believe that a contemporary home must be sided in something equally sleek, but that doesn’t have to be the case. This clean-lined property uses a thin, horizontal lap siding to emphasize its planes and create a transitional effect.
42. Making a Point
This home features an unusual roofline that is brought up in a peak in the center of the home, then again over the garage. To emphasize that, it’s covered in half-round shingles done in the same color as the rest of the house siding.
43. Geometric Contrast
The roofline of this home takes on a slightly unusual angle. To contrast this and add additional visual appeal, architectural panels and board and batten siding are used below it to add lines moving in different ways.
44. Saturated with Color
Some colors really stand out and look their best when their fully saturated, and green is one of them. This home makes a big statement done in a deep green color trimmed with white to make it pop.
45. Monochromatic Exterior
Color isn’t the only way to make a statement on your exterior. This home uses a mix of black, white, and gray to great effect, creating a monochromatic appearance that’s beautiful to see.
46. Rustic Appeal
Mountain lodges and other rural buildings sometimes utilize things like peeled log columns to help them fit in with their surroundings. To match these decorative features, a natural, wood-look siding is needed to help complete the effect.
47. Towering Brick
The cool, slate-gray siding on this home gets a much welcome contrast in a red brick column in the center. The contrast between both the colors and the materials adds subtle interest without overwhelming the property.
48. Changing the Lines
By changing the direction of the siding over the different areas of the home, you can also change how people view the building. In this case, the eye is pulled upward on the board and batten sections, showing off the different rooflines as well.
49. Protruding Panel
This contemporary property uses a traditional lap siding over most of its exterior. To help it step up its style game, a panel done in a wood-look vertical shiplap extends outward, drawing the eye.
50. Multi-Family Multi-Siding
Town houses like these, which are linked together, don’t need to match one another perfectly to look their best. Instead, using a different color and style of siding on each one creates a more individual and fun atmosphere for all the homes.
Create Your Own Look
With the many ways that you can use house siding to complete your home or business, you’ll have no trouble finding something that’s just right. Whether you use cedar-look shingles or traditional lap siding, you’ll have no trouble completing your home’s facade with beautiful, durable, fiber cement siding.
