Apologies! I’ve been MIA from the blog because I went on vacation for the Fourth of July, and now I’m trying to play catch up on decisions for our new house, The Creek Classic. I hope you had a fabulous time over the Fourth celebrating America with the people you love the most. My family spends the week at my parents’ lake home (read more about that here), so we were making memories up there. Recently I shared our plan to do all white shakes/shingles on the exterior of our new home, The Creek Classic, and today I’m excited to share additional exterior selections we’ve made.

Roof

The roof was a bit of a “give and take” situation, as I was originally leaning toward a softer gray roof to hopefully mimic aged cedar, in keeping with the Hampton-esque feel the white shingles create.

Adam really wanted a black roof and a mix of shakes and horizontal siding, so I told him if he’d give me all shakes I’d give him a black roof. His answer, as we were standing in our future backyard debating the merits of each option: “Done!”

The color of our roof is Black Shadow by Castlebrook. Now that it’s on, I’m loving it, and we’re both pleased with our decision. Who am I kidding? Trying to mimic the look of cedar was never going to work! Plus, I don’t want to have to redo the look of the house five or ten years from now, and black and white is a timeless, forever-in-vogue combination that should never look outdated.

Garage Doors

Garage doors aren’t really one of the exterior selections that people tend to think about before building a house. At least I never had “dream garage doors” on the brain. But once you really think about it, it’s clear how much impact this choice has on your curb appeal. Garage doors are one of the first things you see when pulling into your driveway, and the same goes for guests coming to visit. If the style of garage door you choose doesn’t coordinate with the other exterior selections, it causes discordance and throws the curb appeal off.

I knew from looking at various inspiration homes (sidenote: see what a visual process designing a home is, and how crucial inspiration photos are to ensure you end up with something you really love) that I wanted a vertical style garage door, similar to below, from a gorgeous home on the Whitefish Chain I’ve loved for years that just sold for the cool price of $4.5 million! Check out the listing here.

Of course, garage doors that looked like that were not included in the standard options. So Paul, our builder (Precision Homes), checked with his supplier and sent me these options (along with the higher sticker price, of course). I apologize for the photo quality… I have no idea what the brand of these doors is or where Paul buys them.

We went with garage door number SR-82 and window style Stockton. That brings us pretty close to the look of the Crosslake home!

Window Trim

The initial rendering from the architect, seen here, showed crown moldings with mullions over the exterior of our windows. Once I paid attention to local homes and looked at different pictures, I realized I wasn’t sold on the mullions, and I liked a cleaner look. I do love the class and sophistication of a simpler crown molding, as seen below on the gorgeous home of Elizabeth from Pretty Pink Tulips.

The crown would have been beautiful, but as Paul looked at options for us, it became clear a higher sticker price was attached, and since we liked a clean and simple window trim look just as well (seen on the small window on the right below), we’re sticking with that.

Front door

Oh wow, this was a tough one for me… When Paul sent over a picture of the standard door, Adam and I were both like, “Um, no. That’s not going to work.” It was a plain windowless steel door with two sidelights. Not terrible, but we loved our last front door, a mahogany stained craftsman style with a window and sidelights. After that stunner, the standard look fell flat and we both wanted more of a statement piece, preferably with a window in it. One of the things I love about Paul and Alena (Paul’s wife, and the company designer) is that they totally flex with my desire to go outside what everyone else wants. Paul told me to start shopping and send him some ideas. I’m pretty sure I text bombed him with about 12 different front doors that night. Adam told me he’s really glad he’s not our builder. 😉

Paul checked a few of his wholesale vendors and didn’t see anything along the lines we were looking for, so I kept perusing Pinterest and shopping online, and one day this double door option popped up on Home Depot’s website . That got my wheels turning… What if we did side by side double doors instead of a single door with sidelights?! I immediately texted Paul to ask if that was feasible, and he said if it fit in the allotted space, we could make it work. Sold!!

The only problem was that the double door above had internal grilles on the windows, and I plan on painting the doors black. I didn’t love the idea of black doors with white grilles, so I kept looking… So much time hunting for the elusive perfect front door that wouldn’t be a $2,000+ upgrade!

In the end, we actually ended up selecting patio doors for our front door, which sounds super strange. But after looking at what felt like 1200 different front door options, my heart was set on side by side double doors with exterior paintable grilles. And the only option I like remotely within our budget happens to be this set of patio doors. We double checked and it can be used as a front door, it just has a different type of drainage system, or something technical like that that doesn’t really matter to me. Let’s be honest, I just want it to look pretty. 😉

I didn’t know it when I picked them, but these doors are actually super similar to the Coastal Living 2016 Hamptons Showcase Home which also has white shakes… Who knows? Maybe I’ll actually end up leaving them white, because how gorgeous is this?!

That about wraps up my exterior selections update on The Creek Classic. Now I need to go back to light fixture shopping and prepping for our electrical walk through tomorrow morning… But that’s a post for another day!

Drop me a message in the comments selection below. I’d love to hear what you think of my exterior selections so far! 🙂