Actually, I suspect the literature that comes with doors these days is written in a way that makes it hard to comply with the instructions so that when you have a complaint, they can say hey it's your fault you didn't use a SealerStain! You do not need a stain. You can just apply the varnish directly to the wood, but be aware that the oil varnishes have come amber color so the color of the door will change so test it at the bottom first to make sure you will like it. You can use the exterior varnish inside but this is not really necessary as the interior varnish will be durable enough. The main problem with using the exterior varnish is the smell and it also takes many hours to dry.

$12K cost difference is a lot to take on. I understand. Money no object.. even primed and painted pine is not that great of a material, especially for windows unless maybe you lived somewhere that rarely had any rain or humidity like New Mexico. Pine just doesn't hold up. What kind of warranty does Marvin offer on their Ultimates? Where I live on the other side of the country, there is a local window company that for the $$$ will make the same windows as the Ultimate. I looked into having a new wood window made for my kitchen. Frame and everything. For them to make it, and me installing the glass because their up charge for putty was a lot, and painting was around $2.2K. I think they were going to use wooden stops. This was a couple years ago. I have no idea what they were going to charge for installation. I did some digging around. Made a call all the way to MA and talked with a window maker. He gave me a # of a smaller scale window maker somewhere in CA. I spoke with him. The lowdown he told me was, to make money he needs to make at least three windows of the same size. So if the windows you are making are all the same size you may be able to negotiate a little bit of savings. Anyhow, He forwarded me to a guy somewhat closer in OR. He was going to charge me about $1200 for what I wanted, and this was using all the old pre 1950s windows making equipment using VG Fir. Apparently the guy was a collector of old window making machinery. Really interesting to talk to. So, my installer disappeared. And since this was going to be a little more involved than I wanted to deal with because the window was going to be slightly moved, a mess with the upper kitchen cabinets, etc..., I decided to pass. What I'm trying to say is there may be some equal quality smaller scale window manufacturers closer to you, but much less expensive than Marvin. I'm sure Marvin has a lot of overhead, and likes to have a lot of profit margin for their name. I also have those same 1960s picture windows. They actually don't bother me. But they put in an awful 1960s aluminum slider window in the kitchen that has awkward dimensions and is ugly. Still have it.

Virgil, we plan to have drywall throughout the house. Might do paneling for some accent walls. Some of the windows and doors will be vertical grain douglas fir. I was asking if the windows and doors should get the same stain as the ceiling. I suppose the trim should be done in a similar fashion as well. seabornman, leaving the fir natural is definitely an option we want to consider, but I am not sure what is the actual natural color. I have been trying to find some pictures online, but there seems to be quite a bit of variation. If we did the semi transparent stain on the ceiling as Virgil suggested, I am assuming the natural finish on the windows and doors will be lighter.

Here’s the worst of them. The sun beats on this door from 2p-sunset. The French doors are under deep porches but the stain is still flaking away on them as well. The doors look so dehydrated and they’re only a year old from being installed. The back story - we were supposed to get fiberglass but the supplier messed up and got wooden doors. They said don’t worry about it and we scored the Fir doors for the cost of fiberglass. When the painters asked what to stain them with, I was too quick and told them to stain them the same as the baseboards which are Varathane early American. I want to stain them a rich ebony color since my windows are black. Right now the stain clashes with my baseboards b/c I was an idiot, not thinking about fir being pinkish and my pine baseboards being yellow so the stain obviously takes on a different tone. I was mentally done with making decisions that day and spoke too soon.