I just thought I'd post this though it may seem obvious. We have a new 10-ft Jeldwen 4-panel sliding door with 9-light grids. We love the look but staining and finishing has been a monumental job; two weekends so far and it still needs a couple more coats. I've done plenty of wood finishing, but this is a really tedious job because of the seeming miles of masking, weatherstrip, and edges plus two major application headaches. First, even though Jeldwen used mostly clear vertical grain veneer, the pine does not take stain well even with a conditioner. We're very disappointed in the stain's evenness. Second, it was strongly suggested that I use water-based poly and I'll NEVER do that again. It may be more forgiving than true varnish but coverage is blotchy and it has little body for brushing. Two coats of varnish would have looked great. I've applied two coats of the poly and it will take at least two more to get a nice deep gloss. I've had better coverage using shellac than the water-based poly. If I had it to do again, I'd pay a premium for hardwood interior that takes a finish better and use real varnish...or get it prefinished. That would put several makers, including Jeldwen out of the running. There's no real excuse for the mfrs to use low cost pine veneer instead of oak or birch to save $5 on a $4000 door.

Agreed! That sounds penny wise and pound foolish. You would think bad word of mouth would cost them in the long run.
Our window will be high up in the ceiling (from the outside it will be among the roof tiles) and we could easily go with white trim for it to match our other white trim. I think that is the easier route than staining. If I had had any doubts, you certainly have given me reason to head towards white! Thanks for sharing ;)