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My partner and I just moved into a new neighborhood. If you’re anything like me, the first thing you do after moving somewhere new is go for a walk and try to get a more personal, up-close sense of your neighborhood. Because our minds were still dreaming about house stuff due to the recent move  (“what kind of lighting do you think should go in the kitchen?”), we began to notice the choices other homeowners had made.

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We stared at homes sometimes with our heads turned sideways and wondered out loud—what is it that we don’t like here? It was oftentimes hard to put our collective finger on. Is it those plants? The color of paint?

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Considering I work at a company that makes homes look more beautiful, the reason why some homes had more curb appeal than others probably should have occurred to me sooner. It wasn’t the layout of the balcony. It wasn’t the landscaping. It wasn’t even the clutter on a front porch.

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There were patterns in what made the siding visually appealing or not—and those themes kept coming up, no matter the color, style of the house overall, or newness of the build.

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Pests. Paint peeling. Hail damage. Dirt. Slowly, we began to realize why some people’s siding just looked better than others—and it wasn’t really that it was brand new, because we saw houses of all ages that stood above the others.

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It was the siding.

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Siding’s true weakness is that it can look ugly when it’s broken. What makes siding look as great as the day it was installed is that it resists deterioration. If siding is damaged due to hail, or water or sun damage, it can impact the overall look of the house.

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I’m a big antique wood fan. I love the way it looks, and so in doing research on the kind of siding I thought might look exemplary on a house for myself, I naturally gravitated towards wood. The problem with wood is not that it doesn’t look great, because it does—at first. After a few seasons of heavy rain, or a particularly rabid year for wasps (like the summer of 2024 in Calgary), or some over-eager woodpeckers, the natural beauty of wood siding fades. It’s the same with vinyl siding—though it’s not a bad option—it doesn’t hold up against the torrential hail storms Calgary seems to be receiving each year. When it comes to vinyl siding, depending on the extent of the damage, entire panels may need to be replaced in order to fix the issues. 

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Beauty that lasts is the kind of beauty I want to invest in.

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Hardie Board is designed to resist the elements, fight off pests, and more—and because it does its job so well, the aesthetic quality holds up for years. Its investment is longevity.

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My neighbors picked siding that doesn’t chip or crack in the face of hail. They picked siding that’s designed to resist pests and mold and mildew. They picked siding that is easy to clean. It’s beautiful because they chose siding that isn’t really about the way it looks today—it’s about how it holds up tomorrow. 

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