PLEASE Advise ~ Harmoizing Deck Stain Color With Flowers

9 years ago

Greetings.. I am so hoping some of you can advise me. I have made a terrible mistake with my large 14x40 foot deck.

I am in the first year of attempting to make a cottage style garden out of my small rectangular and barren yard. Thus far, I have planted mostly pinks, lavenders blues and purples, in what I guess would be cool tones. My deck was that pressure treated browny orange color with flecks of weathered gray and it seemed to work.

Recently though we decided to try staining the deck with some heart redwood we had left over. Despite the fact that I did test a sample and liked it, when we put it on the deck it dried a horrific orangey red that is very dark and heavy for the light, airy vibe I am going for. My beautiful garden of cool pinks and light blues, purples and white seems to clash horribly with the very dark imposing warm redwood color of the deck.

I am brand new to color theory and am trying to figure out how to fix this. I am leaning towards stripping and re staining was wondering what color deck stain would work well with the lavenders, cool pinks, and blues of my young cottage garden ?? I would like a transparent stain.

I have included a pic showing the deck prior to staining. This was taken long ago and it looks much better now with many shades of pinks and whites etc. Also..the red Maltese cross has been moved. I do not currently have one showing the after stain, but tit is very heavy,dark red/orange redwood color. Clashes terribly with pink roses...uggh..

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Comments (4)

PRO
Yardvaark
9 years ago
What needs to be seen is what the deck looks like now. It would be good to set up the picture so that garden is in foreground, deck in midground and lower part of house is background. You might stand on something that raises you off the ground a couple of feet so that the deck shows up well.

This post was edited by Yardvaark on Fri, Aug 22, 14 at 9:26
User
9 years ago
Hi pixiefeather, With that color scheme I was automatically drawn to a grey, translucent stain. Something to keep it in the cool tones, something relaxing. I thought about a stone color, similar to the driftwood grey, granite, beechwood gray, or bluestone gray swatches from the list in the link. I dont know if it is possible to strip it enough to get it that color. And it really depends on what color your house is if it will go, and I think the deep red of the back wall might not go either.

If I was re-staining the deck--to tone down the wall I would put some trellis with some lovely pink and purple clematis up if they work in your zone. Maybe something like 'Hagley Hybrid' and 'Warsaw Nike' to compliment the color scheme. Its the planting time for them too.

Whatever you decide, good luck and I am sure you will come to a good solution! In any case, it sounds like you have a lovely garden coming along.

Here is a link that might be useful: Semi transparent stain swatches
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Pixiefeather
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks you, yes Ninkasi that is exactly the color I was leaning towards as well. Good to hear it confirmed. Also..the awful deep green on the back is where we were recently experiementing wit house wall colors and is only a small swatch area. I agree that also was a huge fail. I think I may try a very light green next. Clearly I am color challenged, but am working on it. :)

Yaardvark, I included the pic to give an idea of some of the flowers colors. The color the deck is now does not actually matter because that is what I aim to change.

Thanks so much for the advice ..
princesspea
9 years ago
In Seattle, I inherited a property line fence from the neighbor that was finished on both sides, screamin orange- total clash with my pale roses, lavender and lambs-ears! but it was stained that color to harmonize with the neighbors awesome tropical looking hot-toned plantings so I couldn't stay mad. I couldn't strip stain or wait for it to weather out over five years, so I used an opaque stain in dark charcoal grey to cover it- it is a cool toned color at least, if not the weathered beach cottage look I was aiming for. Looked super fine with my brick half-wall house too- bottom half raw bricks, top half ivory with dark charcoal trim.

PLEASE Advise ~ Harmoizing Deck Stain Color With Flowers

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PLEASE Advise ~ Harmoizing Deck Stain Color With Flowers

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