Shake and Shingle Siding: How Do You Get the Coastal New England Look?

What is shake and shingle siding, and why does it belong here?

You’ve seen the house. Gray shingles gone silver in the salt air, white trim, somewhere between Plymouth and Provincetown. Shake and shingle siding puts that look on a house that didn’t grow there.

Both are small, overlapping pieces laid in horizontal rows called courses. The difference is texture. A shingle is sawn on both faces, so it’s thin, smooth, and even, and the rows line up cleanly. A shake copies cedar split by hand, so each piece is thicker, rougher, and a little different from its neighbor, and the bottom edges often stagger. Shingle reads tailored. Shake reads rustic.

The look comes from the white cedar shingles coastal New England has used for centuries, which start out tan and weather to a light silver-gray in rain, salt, and wind, per This Old House. That patina is why the style is tied to Cape Cod, the South Shore, and the Islands. Real cedar is a different project with different upkeep; this is about the lines that copy it without staining. The pillar’s profile table sets shake beside the other profiles.

Coastal Shingle or Rustic Shake: which look are you picturing?

TruFit, the two-minute survey in our free assessment, sorts the cedar look into two style directions. Know which one you mean before anyone shows you a sample.

• Coastal Shingle. Even courses, straight bottom edges, a weathered color. The Nantucket cottage, the shingled Cape by the beach. Calm, and at home with crisp white trim.
• Rustic Shake. Staggered bottom edges, deeper texture, more shadow. Every course casts a shadow line, the dark strip under each row’s edge, and shake casts a heavier one. It suits a craftsman, or a gable meant to be noticed.

Saved photos of silver houses near water mean Coastal Shingle. Warm, textured gables with heavy trim mean Rustic Shake. The pillar’s profile-to-house matching puts each beside the homes it fits.

Where does shake go: the gables, a full story, or the whole house?

This is the question homeowners can’t picture. The same shingle lands three ways, depending on how much of the house wears it.

An accent profile costs more per area than lap, but a gable is a small share of the wall, so shake in the gables moves the total a little. Shingle on every wall is a whole-house choice. We walk that line in whether a custom siding design costs more than a plain one. The look is the harder part to settle from a drawing, and that’s where TruPro earns its keep: shake in the gables of a model of your actual house, then a full second story, then the whole house, each with its own total. “Gables only, or a full second story” stops being a guess.

Which materials give you the shake look?

Three lines we install carry the cedar look, and they fit different homeowners rather than ranking.

CertainTeed Northwoods is vinyl shake and shingle: rough-split shakes with the varied pattern of hand-split cedar, plus Sawmill and Perfection shingles for the smoother coastal look. No painting, no staining, and it sits at the vinyl tier, so it fits the homeowner who wants shake in the gables without moving the project up a tier.

CertainTeed Cedar Impressions is molded polymer rather than hollow vinyl, and its texture is cast from real cedar, so the grain and saw marks copy actual wood. It comes as Perfection shingles, Sawmill shingles, and Rough-Split shakes, and fits the owner who wants realism up close. One rule comes with it: hand-clean only, since power-washing voids the warranty.

Hardie Shingle is James Hardie’s fiber cement version, in straight-edge and staggered-edge panels with a factory-applied color finish. It fits the homeowner already choosing fiber cement for the whole house.

Which is right follows the whole-house material. Our guide to which CertainTeed vinyl line is right for you covers Northwoods and Cedar Impressions in depth, and our comparison of the three materials covers the whole-house decision.

Which colors suit shake and shingle siding?

Texture is already doing the work, so the color can relax. The palettes that suit it are the ones the coast already wears, in TruFit’s words:

• Soft Grays. The natural answer. A mid gray or silver reads as weathered cedar from the street and needs nothing but white trim.
• Coastal Blues. Muted, grayed-down blues, from pale blue-gray to a deeper slate. They belong near water and pair naturally with a gray roof.
• Warm Naturals. Not a bright cedar tone but the weathered versions: driftwood, khaki, soft tan. Best when the roof and trim are warm too.

Saturated colors fight the texture, since every shadow line multiplies them; save the bolder note for the door. Whatever the palette, check its temperature, warm or cool, against the roof and any brick or stone first; our guide to matching siding color to your roof, brick, and stone goes fixture by fixture. And in a local historic district, common in coastal towns, the commission approves materials and colors before the permit, so check your town’s guidelines.

How do you pair shake with lap siding below?

Most shake in Massachusetts sits above lap, and the pairing has three rules. First, give the profiles a place to meet: a horizontal trim board, sometimes called a water table, between them. Without it the change looks like a repair. Second, keep both in the same color family, or let the shake go one step deeper; a different color and a different profile is two changes where one will do. Third, match the exposure, the amount of each piece left showing, so both read at the same scale.

If you’re also weighing board and batten for the gables, board and batten versus lap siding covers how each reads, and mixing siding styles on one house lays out the combinations by house type.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between shake and shingle siding?

Both are modeled on cedar. Shingle is sawn, so each piece is smooth and even and the rows line up cleanly. Shake copies hand-split cedar: thicker, rougher, more varied, with rows that often stagger. Shingle reads quiet and coastal; shake reads rustic.

Should shake siding go on the gables only or the whole house?

It depends on the house. Shake in the gables is the most common New England move and adds a little, not a lot. A full second story over lap suits a Cape or a colonial with a trim band between floors. The whole house in shingle is the true coastal-cottage look, priced as a whole-house decision. TruPro shows all three on a model of your own house.

What is shake siding made of if it isn’t real cedar?

The lines we install give the cedar look in three materials: CertainTeed Northwoods in vinyl, CertainTeed Cedar Impressions in molded polymer, and James Hardie’s Hardie Shingle in fiber cement. Cedar Impressions must be hand cleaned; power-washing voids its warranty.

What colors look best with shake and shingle siding?

The colors already on the coast: Soft Grays that echo weathered cedar, muted Coastal Blues, and weathered Warm Naturals like driftwood and khaki, almost always with white trim. Saturated colors fight the texture. Match the color’s temperature to your roof first.