Siding & Windows in Gracywoods, Austin, TX

Why did this Gracywoods home need new siding?

The original cladding had simply aged out. Gracywoods holds a lot of homes from the neighborhood's early build years, and this one showed the wear you'd expect.

• Old siding was faded and soft in spots
• The exterior offered little help against summer heat gain
• Cedar pollen and grime had settled into worn surfaces
• A front column needed repair at its base

What did the crew find during inspection?

When we walked the home, the biggest issue was an exterior envelope that had lost its edge. The siding was tired, the windows were dated, and the gutters were ready for the dumpster. We also flagged the front column, which had damage at the base that needed real carpentry, not a cosmetic patch. Fixing structure before finish work is where a lot of jobs go wrong. Skip it, and you paint over a problem that comes back.

What materials did we use, and why?

We went with James Hardie 8.25-inch Select Cedar Mill fiber cement. The wider exposure gives the home clean, bold lines, and the primed boards took paint beautifully.

• Fiber cement won't warp or swell in 100-degree-plus summers
• It resists hail impact far better than the old material
• The Cedar Mill texture reads like real wood grain
• Primed Select Cedar Mill meant a smooth, uniform paint finish

Austin's mix of intense sun, sudden hail, and heavy cedar pollen is hard on any exterior. Fiber cement handles all three without the rot or repainting cycle that plagues older wood siding. That's why we steer Central Texas homeowners here again and again.

How did the installation go?

Sequence was everything on this job. We ordered the windows in late January, they arrived late March, and we installed them first over several days.

• Windows went in before siding so we could flash them cleanly
• Old gutters were removed and hauled off per linear foot
• New 5-inch seamless aluminum gutters and 3" x 4" downspouts went up
• We repaired the front column base before any finish work
• Two rounds of yard cleanup and punch items closed things out

Doing windows first is the detail most homeowners miss. Install siding first, and you can't properly tuck flashing behind it later.

What did the paint work include?

Once the boards were up, our painters brought the whole exterior together with Sherwin Williams product. Color unified the siding, trim, and garage doors into one crisp look.

• Painted fascia and soffit up to 24 inches
• Painted the garage doors to match
• Coated all new siding surfaces per square

What were the results?

The home came out cooler, quieter, and far tougher against the weather. New windows sealed the envelope, Hardie siding armored the walls, and seamless gutters route water away cleanly. We closed the project on June 2, 2023.