Exterior

So my plan is to go room with room and discuss my concepts for each with the layout and furniture placement and finishes but I thought I would start with the exterior since it really sets the tone for the house. I made the mistake on my last house that the exterior had much lower finishes on the exterior than the interior. I often had people come over and literally say, " Wow, I had no idea the house was this nice inside." Not exactly the most glowing compliment. Kind of like when the bitchy girl at work says "You look tiiiired." So on this house I have repeatedly told David the exterior needs to match the interior. My vision for the house is an updated french country. Lots of neutrals, natural materials, soft, warm and inviting. Less painted furniture and slipcovers and more stone, wood, and plaster. These are the images I started with.

The house will no in way be this grand from the front but it at least gives you an idea of the colors I am drawn towards. I really like the look of limestone and stucco together in lighter shades of browns and neutrals. Searching for a limestone looking facade in the pacifi northwest has been challenging. The one I fell in love with was Dover Rockface by Boral (used to be Owens Corning) but it's been discontinued and I was told they could special order it but only for projects over 20k sq ft...so that's obviously not happening. I then was enticed by ElDorado Austin Cream Limestone but it's only available to "Western states" and Washington apparently not Western but we are in the "Northwestern states" category. I then settled on ElDorado's nationwide available stone, San Marino.

But then I started playing around on their nifty visualizer tool and started to second guess myself.

The San Marino looks super blue to me?!? So then I started playing around with another one of their stone's called Rough Cut. This is the Casa Blanca which now I think has made me realize I don't actually want a super light stone. The dark gray grout is not my thing, but if I did a lighter grout I think the house would be blindingly light colored, which is not the look of the other houses around it. I think we would super stick out and that's saying a lot since my neighbor built a straight up adobe square house in pink stucco.

These next two are called Vineyard Trail and Wheatfield. Fitting since we back up to a wheatfield in a town filled with vineyards.

These two are my top contenders right now. I'm ordering samples obviously, so I will post outside photos of them when they arrive. Thoughts? Are there other cultured stone companies I should be looking at?