Outdoor Stain Colors: What Will Work Best With Your Home’s Exterior?

I often talk about exterior paint colors and all the different ways color palettes and hues can bring unique charm and inspiration to the exterior of your home. With spring just around the corner, it’s essential to keep in mind what colors will work best for your home and bring out its real strengths.

Sometimes, the strength of a residential home’s external appearance is not just the colors used to accent its features but the beautiful wood that built the structure.

All wood types, whether new, refinished, or reclaimed, have an extraordinarily timeless charm. Beautiful wood and wood-craftsmanship may be THE most timeless feature that any house can have, which is why so many homeowners love to embrace any wooded elements, regardless of how old they are.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some outdoor stain colors for wood that will help bring out the natural beauty of the wood, protect it, or sometimes emphasize different colors entirely.

Before Choosing Outdoor Stain Colors

Now, before you think about what type of stain you’d like to have for your outdoor fences, arbors, or decks, it’s best to start by understanding the wood used in your home’s outdoor spaces.

Every wood is going to have a natural cast, grain, and pigmentation to it. Identifying which wood(s) you have will let you determine which stain option(s) make the most sense for the species.

Do you have a pressed pine deck, or is it maple? Is your front door cherry wood or chestnut? Is your pergola made of cedar? Do you have multiple wood species around your home, or is it all from the same variety?

Once these questions are answered, you can then move onto choosing the stains most appropriate for the wood you’ll be bringing new life to!

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Outdoor Stain Color Options

Depending on the type and age of your wood, you’ll instinctively know whether you want to show off its natural beauty, embrace some aspects of wood, or apply a solid-color stain to cover up the wood in its entirety. Let’s discuss what circumstances would support which options.

Using a clear/natural stain

A wood stain or finish’s primary purpose is to protect the wood and keep it undamaged from the surrounding environment.

Thankfully, stains and finishes also let us dress the wood in color hues that we desire. Suppose you’ve recently built your home and invested significant time and finances into sourcing beautiful wood for your trim, deck, fences, and arbors. In that case, chances are you’re not going to want to color the wood with a stain. Adding a solid color stain can be so saturated in color that its first impression is that it is solid paint, not a stain.

If you want to show off the wood’s true beauty, you’ll want to bring out the wood’s natural beauty and keep it looking as close to natural as possible; this is when using a clear or natural stain would come in most handy. You’ll be able to protect your woods and keep the charming natural look without any visible color augmentation.

When choosing a stain, there are two options that both give the impression that they would be a clear coat finish; they are Natural and Clear. Although they both sound like they are variations on a clear finish, they can have some color to them. Rather than being influenced by what the name sounds like, make sure you sample the wood stain and decide which one you prefer. Natural is not necessarily clear, and vice versa!

Tinted/semitransparent stain

Tinted and semitransparent outdoor stains are suitable for homeowners who want the wood’s natural tone to come through but not entirely unaltered. If you have an older red oak, as beautiful as it is, it can have a pink cast to the wood. You can apply a clear or natural stain to see the wood’s natural beauty. Or walnut or another color stain to minimize the natural pink tone in the red oak. Add a stain with some color to improve its natural appearance.

Semitransparent stains will show the wood grain’s beauty and make the wood look more uniform, minimizing some of the wild variations in your wood’s colors. Both tinted and semitransparent stains are great for woods that may be slightly aged or just not very lively in expressive color tones.

Remember that the tinted or semi-transparent stains will add color to the wood, but you will still see some grain showing through.

Solid color stain

A trend that has become increasingly popular with modern architecture in recent years is using a solid color stain on exposed wood – the goal here is to completely cover up the wood’s natural hues and grains to pursue something more colorful and dramatic.

If you have a deck made of very plain-looking and uninspired wood, a solid color stain can do wonders to add life and color accents to the exterior of your home.

A brilliant blue bench looks lovely as an accent piece in the garden or against your home. A royal navy blue deck is striking when pictured against a white and off-gray seaside home. An avocado green outdoor stain looks beautiful on a wood table sitting amongst the garden flowers. There are so many opportunities for color in outdoor areas where you would never expect to find them!

It’s About Highlighting The Wood’s Strengths Or Creating New Strengths

If you couldn’t tell, I love the outdoors! One of my favorite aspects of being a paint color expert is finding new ways to incorporate colors into the world we live in.

Do not feel defeated if you don’t have brand new wood or collectible reclaimed wood to work with. Beauty and color inspiration can be brought out of almost any piece of raw lumber, and I love seeing it happen!

Think of the handrail or wood furniture on your deck, maybe a decorative piece by your front door. Choose the right product with the help of the paint store, and the world is your oyster! You’re ready to start adding wood or stain colors to your exterior decor!

So, what will you be doing with outdoor stain colors this spring? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please get in touch.