Selecting the Perfect Neutral Stain Color for a Cedar Fence

We recently completed our DIY horizontal privacy fence project, and set out to select the perfect neutral stain color to complete it. The privacy fence is super close to our house and can be seen out of every window, so it was important for us to choose a color that would look nice through the windows without looking like a big, bold wall. I also needed to color to take away the orangy tint that natural cedar boards show, so that it would look nice with our grey, white, and brown color scheme in our house, but still look nice with the existing fence color (which is an unfortunate red color eventually we want to change.) To select the perfect stain for our DIY privacy fence we sampled 6 colors from Behr. Here’s a look at 6 different neutral stain colors from Behr applied to raw cedar fence boards.

While researching colors for our DIY privacy fence, I found only a few examples of stains applied to raw cedar boards so it was difficult to make a decision based on online examples. I eventually narrowed it down to my 6 favorite neutral colors from Behr and sampled each in semi-transparent.

• Boot Hill Grey
• Tugboat
• Wood Chip
• Chestnut
• Cordovan Brown
• Coffee

Here is a look at the colors just after applying the stain. Boot Hill Grey was nice but too grey, Woodchip was too dark and almost slightly purply, Chestnut was to Orangy, and Coffee was too dark.

My favorite colors were Tugboat and Cordovan Brown. Tugboat is lighter and a more soft/sandy brown, while Cordovan Brown is a darker, richer brown,

To help me select the best color for the project I allowed the stain to dry completely and then put my sample board against our new DIY privacy fence and viewed it from several angles over the course of 2 days. One important view is shown below from our window which is just a few feet from the fence. I really wanted to make sure the color we selected wouldn’t end up looking like a big, bold, dark wall from our window, so ultimately I selected the lighter and softer brown, Tugboat!

Here is another look at all 6 stain samples against a neutral background to help show their true color. I find that viewing stain colors from several angles and against different backgrounds really helps me to see the true color. Sometimes when I look at a stain color too quickly I don’t really get the true color. For this project I really wanted to pick the perfect color so viewing the stain samples several ways was essential.

I love how Tugboat looks in all different lights, and against all backgrounds, and especially how the color looks from inside my home and through the window. This color is neutral, soft, and pretty!

Now that we have the perfect neutral stain color for our DIY cendar privacy fence, we set to work staining it. You can check out this post for how we stained our DIY cedar privacy fence the fast and easy way. Happy staining!

Here is a look at the fence with the Tugboat stain applied. You can see more of this finished space in my backyard outdoor oasis reveal here.

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