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Building a Home

How did you choose an exterior stain?

16 years ago

I have a question for veteran home builders. We are about to install a prestained siding. This is the Nichiha fiber cement shake product. We will also have a mahogany front door and cedar garage doors. The garage doors need to be stained with Sikkens stain in order to not void the warranty, so I'm assuming we will go with the same brand of stain for the front door. I would also assume that the two species of wood will stain very differently. Do I need to get some wood scraps from a local lumberyard, buy a bunch of colors of the stain and play around with staining both species of wood to figure out which is the best match for the siding on the two different species? Of course, the problem is made interesting my the stain being special order. Doh! I've probably just answered my own question, but for some reason this is seeming overwhelming to me today. Has anyone else faced a similar problem of having several species of wood on the exterior of their home? If so, how did you go about dealing with this? TIA for any advise.

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Comments (3)

allison0704
16 years ago
We have cedar, spruce, oak and clear pine wood inside and outside our home. They are all stained very similar in color. We started with the cedar beams/posts, The spruce was stained in a 50/50 mix I worked on with the main painter. We used scraps to play around with the mix.

The doors/windows were a tad harder. Ended up going to the paint store and working with a wonderful (and patient) employee. Bought 3 quarts of special mixed stain (since none of the off the shelf colors worked for me) before finding the right one.

Good luck!
jaymielo
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks allison. So, I'm in for a challenge... :) sigh. I was hoping this was the task to put my DH on, but he's not big on patience, so maybe not... I guess I will just work with one item at a time. First would be the cedar garage doors since we would like to get them hung. Then the front door, since the frame and sidelights are already installed. On the interior, I'm not as concerned because we are going to go natural on the QS oak floors and then stain all the QS oak cabinets and oak doors a medium color for contrast. We will be dealing with one species there so I'm thinking if I find one color I like, I'm "golden", no pun intended. Thanks for explaning your process. I guess I'm about to learn a lot about stain. j.
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allison0704
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We used Minwax Early American on our cedar. Not too light or dark, and not to red or orange. You can buy a tiny sample can at Home Depot, et al.

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