What color to stain the deck?

The siding of our house is white, we have white PVC fencing and cement flooring throughout if that makes any difference.

After going to Home Depot I learned that there are 3 types: 1. Paint-covers the wood 100% 2. Semi-transparent- allows wood grain to show through while giving some coverage. 3. transparent- shows the wood fully just protects.

I know paint lasts the longest, but the wood is brand new, I feel like its a shame to cover it fully. I think I wanna go semi-transparent, but there are like 40 shades.
Does anyone have a recommendation or a picture of theirs?

Natural wood look? Reddish color? more to the brown family? HELP! :)

Message edited 7/18/2012 10:42:05 AM.

Re: What color to stain the deck?

we have white siding & black shutters and used Behr Stain from HD.

on our front porch we have white railings and risers and used Slate in semi-transparent. I saw pictures of black porches that I loved but since our porch isn't covered (yet!!) I was scared to do black bc it would get too hot. We went with Slate bc it was dark but not totally black. I love the way it looks against the white house/railings/risers.

on our back deck we used Cape Cod Gray in semi-transparent. We went with a lighter color bc we figured we would be barefoot on the back deck more than the front porch.