Let's Get it Started: Brick, Stone and Siding!

We have had brick done for quite a while, but they just recently started on the stone and the little bit of siding on the house. I figured it was best to post about them all together so that the pictures could do the talking. However, let me first start by saying that we picked the brick from General Shale. It is called Innsbrook. Our builder had just used it on another job he completed and I loved it from the moment we pulled up to their house. I also liked a color called Millstone. I was definitely stuck between the two colors. So what to do? I did what any normal, slightly obsessive girl would do. I enlisted the help of friends and family and traipsed them all over Knoxville looking at the lists of houses General Shale had given me that used those two choices. After seeing maybe 10 houses I was still not sure! Crazy right?!! You either like something or ya don't so I have no idea what my problem was. After all, I did say already that I was pretty much in love with the Innsbrook when I saw it on another of our builder's houses. However, something about that chocolaty brown Millstone was super appealing too. To the chagrin of my best friend, I tricked her into coming with me one day and drove around again to look at houses. Yes, again! In the end I just decided that the Innsbrook was the best choice for our house and went with that brick and the same mortar color our builder had used on the other house. Probably could have saved myself countless hours obsessing about this decision if I had just trusted my gut and gone with Innsbrook from the beginning! Live and learn right? :)

Doing stone was another thing that I knew might prove to be difficult. Greg and I really wanted a strong contrast between the brick and stone. We both were loving stone in the gray family. So we went out to the stone company and picked out the style: ledgestone. Then the company came out with a field sample of our top two color picks to see how it looked against our brick. I liked them both! So what's a girl to do? She's to create her own custom blend of the two, that's what! I told the stone guy what I was after and he helped us create the custom blend. We are in love! Like stars in our eyes in love! Looking at it all I know that we will probably need to add some shutters and maybe paint or stain the front door a dark color to tie it all together, but it is looking good so far. Happy with the choices!

 

Walk out basement door and the lovely brick!

Front elevation of the house. Looks like a castle Greg says!

 

 

Brick and stone together. Love the contrast. Above the brick windows there will be stone accents and vice versa.

 

 

Brick, stone and siding. Stone is installed as a dry stack and has no mortar between the individual pieces.

 

Gray ledgestone. It has a good mix of a gray with black and a gray with brown tones.

Closer view of all three materials together.

 

From the street. Really thinking shutters would be good on the three windows on the left and the window where the siding is.

 

View of the stone on the brick over the doorway arch

 

Trial piece of the gutter to decide if I like it. I do! I really like how it blends into the roofline and pretty much disappears. Do not want light downspouts against my dark brick.