To Paint or Stain

Hi Everyone,

The house reno has been finished to lock up stage.
We now have a very nice set of meranti french doors at the back.
Initially we were going to paint the doors and put a 'run of the mill' patio and paving package out the back, but have now decided to go for a jarrah deck and the patio is to be decided upon.

The question is thus:
Taking into account we live in a windy coastal area, should we:
Paint the doors in enamel to suit the scheme of the house or
Stain the doors in a jarrah stain to try and maintain the color thru the deck.

Open,honest opinions are sought as i really dont which way to go.

Cheers
Steve

Stain first. If you don't like it, you can easily paint enamel over the top. The other way round and you're stuck with the paint unless you want to spend hours getting it off again.

As Gumby says, you can always paint over a stain, but having said that, I don't have a very high opinion of Meranti. I always found it to be a dull timber that has no character and the timber is usually too soft to take hard knocks.
If it were mine I would paint it.

Just for a bit for variety, we stained our cedar doors and windows when the house was built about 23 years ago, but after around 10 years and a few coats of cabots oil/stain noticed some severe weathering and the start of deterioration on the west facing wood. In the end we sanded back the interior put a light coat of Danish oil on then a clear finish over the top. Outside we took a painters advice and scrapped the oiled finish which just did not cut it. A light coat of Danish oil to put back a bit of body, followed by oil based undercoat, waterbased undercoat and two coats of solarguard. I don't care if we overdid it as 13years later the outside trim looks if it was only put on the other day and we kept the natural hue of the timber on the interior.John C