glnnj - Certainteed's stained fiber-cement products come in 6 shades: mahogany, cedar, redwood, maple, slate (which is the silver grey of deeply weathered wood) and emerald (which is a deep green). Go to the page I linked to in my post above and pick any of of the stain-finished products by clicking on its name (in blue). This will lead you to a new page with a small picture of that product on the right hand side. The small picture will have will have six tiny "color squares" beside it. Click on a square and the small picture will change to that color. Click on "view larger image" to see it in a larger size. Bear in mind that the colors you see on a computer are determined by the settings on your computer so the best you can get is a general idea of the colors. You'll want to see sample in real life to get a better idea of how the colors look. That said however, I found that Certainteed was extremely helpful. I could not find a distributor in my area and contacted Certainteed directly. I was wanting their pre-painted product and they sent me a sample board with sample of every color at no charge. Also, even tho there was no distributor in my local area, Certainteed indicated they could and would deliver any product I wanted to me. They don't restrict certain products/colors to certain areas of the country. Nichiha also comes in six standard stain colors and 2 special order stain colors. Standard colors are mahogany, maple, macadamia, charcoal gray, caramel, and emerald wheat. Special Order colors are redwood and weathered grey. Below is a link to the Nichiha site. There are two tiny triangle on the bottom left and right sides of the big picture on this page. Click on them to move thru a slide show of houses built using various nichiha siding - some painted and some stained. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: nichiha

Well, I just for the first time tried out a stain... just on a small decoratively cut piece of cabinet wood ... to see if a black stain would look all that much different from black paint. Based on what I saw, I'd say I'd definitely use a stain for your white wood project vs. paint it. Very different looks. One looks earthy, real and natural and the other looks like - well - paint. (Also, stain shouldn't peel!) I don't know about outdoor stains, but have seen some in the aisles at Home Depot. The woodworking (indoor mainly) stains I was playing around with were from Minwax, which I see has some sort of a white pickling stain at the link I'm posting here. I'd go browse that aisle at Home Depot, get a couple of 'stain chip' brochures and maybe a $5-10 can of whatever white stain (like woodworking, indoor) they have just to try on some piece of wood somewhere so you can see the effect and decide - whether that means you'll be buying an outdoor stain and doing it yourself or hiring a contractor to do it. Here is a link that might be useful: Minwax stains - see the pickling white

Yes, they had to sand it lightly and then carefully remove all dust and residue. I don’t get why you are buying this flooring to begin with though. I would never have bought it if I had known how poor the finish was and that the company didn’t care or stand behind their product. In the end, we spent much more than we would have if we had just bought a better product. There are quality wood and engineered floors out there. Why don’t you give them your business? I posted my experinece so that people could learn from my mistakes, not repeat them. 🙁

I did it, but not with stain. My FP had an orangey stone that I hated; I took gray acrylic craft paint and watered it down, then "painted" it on. What a difference it made. And for less than a dollar. I'll try to post pics if you want them.