SB - No, not using tropical wood flooring for sure! Our posts are under generous overhangs but will certainly be exposed to UV and wind blown rain and snow - no getting away from that. We had original Doug fir sills on our old house (built in 1936) that were rock solid when we sold 2 years ago. They were painted but even so, the wood will last when taken care of which is one of the reasons we opted to use it here. The other reason being there weren't a lot of choices for 8 x 8 posts :-/ am_e here are a couple of quick pics I just grabbed. Our posts arrived pretty rough sawn. Before they were set in place I used a belt sander to smooth them out a bit - they're not baby butt smooth by any stretch but I wanted a little less texture and splinters! This is a post cut off that I sanded and put clear Penofin on the left. when they're first sanded the wood is very light as you can see but it begins to darken really fast. Here are the front porch posts in place. They were all sanded and looked like the sample above 5 or 6 weeks ago and they've already darkened. Getting color samples of the Penofin is proving to be difficult - none of the places here that sell it have the sample color tubes so I called CA. The website says they will ship but when I told them I'm in NC they directed me to a place in IL. Called them (they have no website) and if I email a list of what I want and my phone # they'll call me for a cc# to charge me for the shipping - oy. I'd like to get this done, like soon, ya know! Could be a week + till I even see a sample then test, then decide then order the color I want..... The clear is beginning to look ok to me.

What you plan on doing will work to protect everything (even a bit overkill if the height of your porch is 30" or higher" and for as long as you maintain and paint the surface every few years it should remain in a good condition. Around here we use exterior 1x3 or 1x4 T&G flooring which already comes for exterior use (usually red mahogany wood species) and you don't have to do anything to it but if you like to add stain or solid color all it needs a few coats of paint or stain on the surface.

Thanks to everyone who replied! I really appreciate your feedback. Couple of additional questions, if you have time: 1. Do you feel it is a bad idea to paint Douglas fir, rather than stain it? My husband thinks I am crazy for wanting to paint stained doors. FYI: The 1985 house that we moved into has stained molding, doors, and trim throughout. I am updating the house with taller molding and painting the molding, doors, and trim white. I'm also purchasing Emtek Delaware levers with sideplate: https://emtek.com/sideplate-locks/delaware-9-nonkey. 2. I'd like to convert all of our bi-fold closet doors to French doors. Again, the contractor tells me that it would be cheaper to purchase a pre-hung, solid-core door made of wood veneer than to convert the old doors. However, our current doors are solid Douglas Fir, and I don't want to replace with cheap doors. I've included photos. Thoughts??

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.