An Early Look at LP SmartSide's 8-Inch Brushed Smooth Shake in Huntington Woods, Michigan
- Lake Effect Exteriors
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Most siding projects start with choosing between products that are already on the market. This one started with a product that didn't exist yet. At least not one we could buy.
We were working with a homeowner in Huntington Woods, Michigan, who had an older home sided in smooth cedar shakes. The cedar was part of what gave the house its character, and the homeowner was very clear from the beginning that they didn't want to lose that just because it was time to replace the siding.
They wanted to keep the look of a real cedar shingle. They wanted to keep the smaller reveal that was already on the house. More than anything, they wanted the home to still feel like the same house when the project was finished.
That sounds simple until you start looking at what's actually available.
We went through the options, and while there were products that could get us part of the way there, nothing really checked every box. Some changed the scale of the siding too much. Some looked more like a decorative shake than the traditional smooth cedar shingles already on the home. Others would have meant changing the exterior simply because that was what the available product required.
None of those answers felt right.
Then we happened to mention the problem to our LP SmartSide account representative. His response was essentially, we're actually working on something like that.
That conversation ended up changing the entire project.
From a Homeowner's Idea to an LP SmartSide Test Installation
At the time, LP SmartSide was working on a new 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake siding profile that had not yet reached the broader market. It was almost exactly what we had been looking for.
Our LP representative told us he would make some calls and send some emails to see whether there was any possibility of getting the product for this particular house
.
A project that had started as a normal siding estimate suddenly became something very different.
A few conversations later, LP agreed to make the Huntington Woods home an early test installation for the new 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake.
What made the opportunity particularly interesting to us was that we hadn't gone looking for a pre-launch product just so we could say we installed one. It happened because of a real problem we were trying to solve for a homeowner.
The house already had a look worth preserving, and the siding product we needed wasn't available yet.
Why the 8-Inch Shake Made Sense on This House
Once you see the product installed, the reason the homeowner wanted this type of siding becomes a lot easier to understand. The 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake looks remarkably close to a true smooth cedar shingle.
It's a look we're familiar with in Michigan, especially on older homes, cottages, lake houses, and the cedar-shingled homes you see farther north and around the water.
There's a certain proportion to those houses that comes from the smaller individual shingles and their repeated horizontal lines. Change that scale too much and, even if the new siding is technically a "shake," the house starts to feel different.
That's what we were trying to avoid in Huntington Woods. We wanted it to still look like it belonged there and that is probably the biggest compliment we can give the finished product.
The profile feels natural across the house because it isn't trying too hard to look rustic or exaggerated. It has the clean, smooth appearance of the cedar shingles we were trying to replicate, along with the smaller scale that made the original exterior work.
Installing a New Product That Still Felt Familiar
For our crew, there was obviously some excitement around installing a product that wasn't yet widely available. But the actual installation didn't feel like working with a completely foreign siding system.
The new sizing of the shake profile was different, but the product was built around the LP SmartSide products and installation principles we already work with. That was a good thing. We were able to concentrate on the details that mattered to the house instead of learning an entirely new siding system at the same time.
What really became apparent as the installation progressed was how well the profile worked over an entire home.
Shake siding today is often treated as an accent. You see it in a front gable. Maybe on a dormer. Sometimes on one portion of the front elevation to break up lap siding.
The Huntington Woods project wasn't that. This house needed the shake to be the siding and after installing it that way, that's one of the things we like most about the 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake. It doesn't need to be confined to an accent. On the right home, it's beautiful across the entire exterior.
In fact, we think that's where the product really starts to make sense, especially on Michigan homes where the goal is to recreate or preserve a traditional cedar-shingle appearance.
Working Directly With LP During the Installation
Representatives from LP came to Michigan while the siding was being installed and inspected the project partway through the work. They came back again once the installation was complete.
That was a unique experience for our crew. Normally, we're installing a finished product with established specifications that's already been used on thousands of homes. Here, we were installing a new profile while people from the manufacturer were actively looking at the completed work and following the project.
And LP's involvement isn't ending now that the siding is on the house. The company plans to continue coming back annually for a set period of time to inspect the installation and see how the product is performing over time.
From Test House to Marketing Home
The Huntington Woods home was always intended to be more than a place to install the product and see how it performed. From the beginning, this home had the potential to become one of the projects used to visually introduce the 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake.
Once the installation was complete, LP sent its professional photographer to Huntington Woods to document the finished exterior for marketing.
The project was also shared through LP SmartSide's Instagram and Facebook stories.
The same house where the homeowner had originally told us they wanted to preserve the look of their cedar shingles was now being professionally photographed by LP to show what its new shake profile could look like on an actual home.
And it was a particularly good house for that purpose.
The product wasn't installed on a small sample wall or limited to a decorative gable. It was being shown the way we think the profile is most impressive: across a real Michigan home where shake siding is fundamental to the architecture.
The siding looked like it belonged there.
That was the goal for the homeowner from the beginning, and it also made the house a natural setting for LP to tell the story of the new product.
Our Take After Seeing the Finished Home
We like this product a lot.
Not because it's new, and not just because we had the opportunity to install it early.
We like it because there is a place for it in Michigan.
Smooth cedar shingles are part of the architectural language of a lot of homes here, particularly older houses and homes near the water. When those exteriors eventually need to be replaced, homeowners shouldn't necessarily have to choose
between keeping aging cedar indefinitely or completely changing the character of the house.
The LP Smartside 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake gives us another option.
And after seeing it across an entire home, we wouldn't hesitate to consider it as more than an accent product. For the right house, we'd want to use it exactly the way we did in Huntington Woods: across the whole exterior. The finished product is about as close to the traditional smooth cedar-shingle look as we could have hoped for when we first started talking with this homeowner.
Thinking About LP SmartSide for Your Home?
Lake Effect Exteriors is an LP SmartSide Preferred Contractor serving all of Michigan.
If you're considering LP SmartSide, replacing an existing cedar exterior, or trying to update an older home without losing what makes it distinctive, we'd be happy to take a look at the project and talk through the options with you.
