18 year old house previously stained a dark brown. Many sections of varying lengths have been added as replacements for dried out or rotted planks. The replacements are light in color. We want to restain the entire house in a uniform color.
Our contractor wants to use a semi transparent stain but we are concerned that the color will not be uniform. Can we match the colors?
Very DIFFICULT to match stains in this situation… besides if any other coatings were applied after the original stain, like water-proofing, varnish, wax cleaners etc. then you can't reliably stain over the surfaces again, without attempting to remove the coatings… in addition plain old DIRT will have been absorbed into stained (unprotected) surfaces, and will make uniformity very difficult…
Consider, Priming (use an exterior Oil Primer) then Painting with Exterior Latex (color similar to your stain, maybe)… use Sherwin Williams A-100 (use Gloss, Semi or Satin)…
Best you can do is approximate the stain color from the available brands in your area. If you use a close color you shouldn't have any problems with restaining. For a more uniform stain color consider using a solid color stain, all semi-transparent stains will allow some of the background show through.
