A dream home starts with a beautiful exterior that welcomes guests and shows off the personality of the home and its owners.

The Exterior Portfolio® by Crane brand was founded on the principle that good exterior design should be available to every homeowner so they can create and enjoy the home of their dreams. To do this, homeowners can select a wide variety of styles, textures and colors from architecturally correct cladding profiles, trims and accessories from Exterior Portfolio.

Smart Styles by Exterior Portfolio is the next generation of exterior design, which goes well beyond simply offering a selection of beautiful, low maintenance and long lasting exterior cladding products. Homeowners no longer need to review a complicated combination of colors and styles or be concerned about making the wrong choice. Exterior Portfolio assembled leading design consultants and residential architects to create ten individual design palettes to help homeowners identify and design their most prized asset, their home. The result is an inspiring collection of beautiful exterior design palettes, developed to ensure design accuracy, architectural detail and rich, lasting beauty.

The secret behind Smart Styles is its simplicity.

Homeowners and builders do not need to be experts in design or color science. While Exterior Portfolio’s team of design professionals invested hundreds of hours into each palette, homeowners only need to order the Smart Styles Design Portfolio containing all ten Smart Styles palettes, review them and easily choose a style that will provide lasting beauty for their new or remodeled home.

The Smart Styles selection process is easy. Homeowners can choose a palette based on the style of their home (cottage, Victorian, arts & crafts, French country), geography (coastal, country, urban) or favorite color. The Smart Style collection includes: Coastal Inspiration in blue, French Country in rye, Urban Fusion in grey, Rustic Retreat in red, Old World Charm in saddle, Rugged Simplicity in brown, Cottage Romance in wheat, Arts & Crafts in clay, Earthy Elements in cypress, and Refined Sophistication in mocha. Each Smart Style palette is presented in a specialized brochure containing individual cladding details, pictures and illustrations to help homeowners achieve their desired design style. Each palette recommends two additional design combinations.

Test drive before buying

To help visualize a home featuring a Smart Styles palette, Crane has created the Exterior Portfolio Dream Designer. Homeowners can make the Exterior Portfolio design collection come to life by choosing from more than 20 different popular house designs and creating their own exterior siding, stone, trim, color and texture combinations unique to their personality and style. While manipulating the outside of the interactive homes, visitors select the products of their choice and are able to visualize the payoff of their investment instantly. The Dream Designer allows homeowners the freedom to create their own exterior designs from scratch or take expert advice from the Creative Kickstart program. Creative Kickstart alleviates some of the guesswork of design, allowing visitors to choose from Exterior Portfolio’s popular Smart Styles palettes to help them get started.

Creating and viewing the perfect home exterior design can be done quickly and easily in minutes. Once a home exterior design has been selected and perfected, it can be printed with a detailed product list. The Dream Designer allows homeowners to “test drive” their exterior design idea before actually committing to the time and cost of product installation. The free interactive tool enables limitless design creativity and control without any repercussions.

Products making up Crane’s Exterior Portfolio include: CraneBoard® 7, CraneBoard® 6, CraneBoard® Board & Batten, Portsmouth Shake®, Half Rounds and Hand-Split Portsmouth Shake®, SOLID CORE™ Architectural Essentials™ Accessories, BellaStone® and BellaStone® Architectural Columns.