Hello from a newbie. i am jsut beginning a re-roofing project. The house is a brook ranch, thouh part of it is on a hill and the garage is under the house. I am going to need 35 squares, though the roof is not very steep; i can's stand straight up in my attic. The picture i have attached is from the side. the house is on a slop but from the front it is only one story and it is really quite low to the ground. The brick is dark red, woodwork is withite and shutters black. The neighborhood is kind of upscale with some very large homes, in an older subdivision in town.
The hardest part of this project --in fact it is the hardest project I have done only because of the choice that i must make-- is choosing a color for the roof. right now it has a 40 yer old 3 tab charcoal grey roof that is quite faded and dirty. I guess the safest choice would be to use an architectural shingle in Willimsburgh grey; a dark grey shingle produced by Owens Corning. But i have also been looking at an Owens Corning "Designer Color" called Summer Harvest. The colors in the shingles are brown, red, blue granules.
The problem is that i can't find any other houses that have this color and I am not sure what to expect once you get a whole roof full of it. I have a few sample boards, but they do not cover a big enough area to get a good look. (I put down a bundle of another color that looked quite dark and on my roof it turned out to look tan). I can't get a bundle of the stuff around town; it is a special order. The colors on the computer do not look reliable so any program that lets you "dress up" your house with the shingle might not give you a good idea either. They make it seem like the house has a checkeered pattern and the sample boards I have give a different idea. I am not sure what the color is trying to mimick; perhaps square orange-red tile, though Owen Corning advertises that it gives the house a "rustic" look. I have placed the sample board on the house and it does look pretty good; brown seems to be the dominant color with red highlights. But who knows when 35 squares are on the house? I thought it might pick up the brick. But if anyone has any experience with the OC Duration Designer colors I would appreciate hearing from you, especial about how a large expanse of it met your expectations; did it look like what you though it would? You can see the color at this link, though I am not sure this is relaible; seems to me that when the material is on the roof the colors "blend together" more:
http://roofing.owenscorning.com/home...omparison.aspx
You might have to scroll down to the Duration Designer Colors and click on thge right one.
Any advise or comments appreacited. By the way, I am not doing the labor on the house;I am using someone who has done a lot of good work fro me and has been the team used by some of the contractors in my town. I have read enough to be convinced that he knows what to do perfectly well and he has done great work for me on everything else he has done. He suggested the Designer color; but I would prefer to see for myslef. thanks.
Alto