Seeing is believing. When you’re shopping for a new home exterior, a picture is not worth a thousand words.

What you want is to be able to see and touch real, live samples of what you’re considering wrapping your house in. Sure, a salesperson could show you a book, like wallpaper samples, or a key ring of tiny pieces of vinyl or aluminum like paint swatches, but it isn’t really the same.

A showroom gives you the opportunity to see and feel home exterior claddings on a larger scale. And no salesperson is going to carry samples of stucco or brick around!

In a showroom, you can see a substantial size piece of wall with the type of material you are considering, whether it’s vinyl, aluminum, wood, stone, brick or stucco.

SUBTLE DIFFERENCES IN HOME EXTERIORS

You probably already know what vinyl looks like. You see it everywhere — it’s the most popular home exterior in America. What’s critical with vinyl is the distinction of colors.

Everyone has likely seen lots of homes and businesses covered in the ubiquitous tan, a.k.a. sandalwood, wicker, rough side of an emery board or coffee with two creams and a sugar. Maybe you would like a nice earth tone, but you don’t want to be stuck with this pervasive shade. If you pick your color online or from a sample catalog, it might not look like you thought it would when it’s covering your whole house, so you’d better hit that showroom.

LOOK AT SOME LESS COMMON OPTIONS

As far as wood goes, if you have your heart set on cedar planks finished in a slightly reddish hue, you likely don’t need to visit a showroom. This type of siding is beautiful, and you can probably find plenty of examples of it in your town.

But if you’re considering pine or oak or another type of wood that isn’t as prevalent, you might want to visit the showroom first to see what it looks like firsthand. With wood, there are also lots of different types of siding, like clapboard, board and batten, shingles, shakes and more. You’ll want to see what these look like, and how they’re installed, before you decide.

It’s almost impossible to tell what stone will look like from looking at a single sample, or even a photograph. That’s because stone has so much texture — a tiny piece doesn’t do it justice. In a showroom, you’ll get to see sections of walls made of all different types of stone. You can pick your favorites, then compare pricing to see if the difference seems worth it to you.

Brick is similar, but only if you’re considering something different than the traditional red brick. Even these come in a multitude of shades, however. If you want to make sure your house isn’t going to mirror the walls of the local elementary school, take a few bricks home with you, drive over and compare them.

SEE IT ALL

At Renovation by Burbach, we want you to use as many of your senses as possible when picking out your home exterior cladding, and that’s why we maintain a showroom. You can come in and start from zero, with no idea what type of home exterior you want, and gain a ton of insight in just an hour.

If you want to know what you’re getting before you commit to a new home exterior, come down to the Renovation by Burbach showroom and see what we have to offer!