I forgot to mention one of our other choices - stucco vs. vinyl siding. I was initially leaning towards stucco because I liked the look, but the price was a little high: $3500 CND. Still, I thought it might have been worth it - we went to a house in the area where we we're building to see how it would look. It's an Aspen model without the bonus room...and it's pink.



Pink stucco? Ouch.

We were still pondering going with stucco, but after talking with my parents (who did stucco on their house), we quickly decided against it. The stucco on their house is cracking and falling off, and any shifting or settling of the house on it's foundation causes more cracks. So we decided on plain old vinyl siding - which is a good thing, because looking at the list extras we want added onto the house, I'm happy to have saved $3500!