The wood is redwood so reddish to begin with. We clear coated it for years and finally gave in to adding a stain so it would last longer. We did a mix of 3 stains... 1/4 redwood, 1/4 honeytone, and 1/2 clear. If you don't mix in the clear, the color is too intense. I'd suggest you play around with a few color mixes to get the tone you like then mix with clear. Hope that helps... Good luck!!

Did you use a water base or oil base stain? Thank you!