We’re starting to finish a hall bench my wife wanted.  We decided to use (of course) General finishes milk paint and the color is driftwood.  It looks like a darker gray.  The plans call for barn board for the backing and a piece inserted into the door (see photo).  The driftwood color is awesome!  However, barn board is very expensive, so I got some rough sawn pine.  My question to the group is what color, if any, should I stain the pine backboards?

1. Leave it natural and let the color do whatever it wants…?

2. Stain it….if stain what color?

I tried a little golden oak on a scrap piece and wifey didn’t like it.  She said it looked a bit red-ish.  She thinks it should be stained with an ebony stain, I think it will make the entire bench look to dark.

here is a photo of the bench.  I made the picture black and white so no one would be persuaded by the colors they used.  First photo shows the color we put on the bench.  
 

im a bit stumped on this one…. 

My wife is the color expert here. The grey looks like the walls of our bathroom and she picked a really dark brown (almost black) finish for the cabinets, which were made from oak.

40 minutes ago, lew said:

My wife is the color expert here. The grey looks like the walls of our bathroom and she picked a really dark brown (almost black) finish for the cabinets, which were made from oak.

Hmmm, that’s what my wife thinks also…thanks.

 I think the color of your wall, (under the window) goes well with the gray. BTW nice job on the bench.

I have learned that regardless of what I may think, it's best to go with my wife's suggestion; I think you should as well. It's a very nice bench.

2 hours ago, DuckSoup said:

 I think the color of your wall, (under the window) goes well with the gray. BTW nice job on the bench.

Thank,you.

1 hour ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

I have learned that regardless of what I may think, it's best to go with my wife's suggestion; I think you should as well. It's a very nice bench.

I think you are absolutely correct.  

Here’s what my wife decided on for the bathroom -

 

kinda difficult to see the exact colors but it’s pretty dark 

Yes tell her you disagree on color choice and then do it just like she said and use "Yes Dear" as a response .

On 8/7/2021 at 12:37 PM, lew said:

Here’s what my wife decided on for the bathroom -

 

kinda difficult to see the exact colors but it’s pretty dark 

Wow!  That’s beautiful.

On 8/7/2021 at 2:46 PM, Gerald said:

Yes tell her you disagree on color choice and then do it just like she said and use "Yes Dear" as a response .

Ha ha ha…I told her once she wasn’t going to have it her way…won’t do that again.

I like that bench Pauley, great job on it so far.

As to matching up the barn board/rough cut pine - I notice in the original pic that the room had what appeared to be barn board wainscotting.  Since you are not matching that I would say the door is wide open to anything you want.

48 minutes ago, Cal said:

I like that bench Pauley, great job on it so far.

As to matching up the barn board/rough cut pine - I notice in the original pic that the room had what appeared to be barn board wainscotting.  Since you are not matching that I would say the door is wide open to anything you want.

Thanks Cal.  We finally decided on a color.  It’s a really light color gray.  Hopefully it will be finished either today or tomorrow.

Gray seems to be the hot color today.  Two toned gray should look fantastic.  Looking forward to your finished pic.

4 hours ago, Cal said:

Gray seems to be the hot color today.  Two toned gray should look fantastic.  Looking forward to your finished pic.

We kind of met in the middle on making the decision.  I think it’ll look pretty nice.  Should have it finished in a couple of days. Tomorrow is my day to visit my doctor at the VA.