Are you saying we should have the urethane applied to the color prior to selecting the stain color? The stained used was Duraseal Classic Gray. Based on some other posts here, we were going to have him add some Jacobean to it to add some brown tone to the color, although I believe that will make it darker.

Our contractor stated the floor is a real mix of White and Red oak, so he is a little concerned with color selection due to the varieties of wood and how the "greenish" white oak will accept the stain with the "reddish" red oak boards.

We do plan on using a waterborne urethane, I believe he uses Pallman.

Yes. The surface finish will slightly change the color. Adding Jacobean will likely make the color darker. You can also try Coffee Brown which has more of a greem component to counteract red tones. I can't tell if you have a mix of two oaks or just red oak with a lot of mineral streaks. To make the color more opaque and uniform, the wood could be water popped before the staining. After water popping we do 3 finish coats rather than 2.

Thank you. Yes, he did state due to the color, they will do a finer sanding, water pop, then apply the stain.

Top Left is Coffee Brown and Grey popped, both on the right are Jacobean and Grey with the upper the upper right popped

Always apply a coat of the finish over your colour patches! Always, always, always! And if you don't believe me, you should ask the hundreds of posters on houzz that did NOT follow that advice and needed their floors redone. It isn't a happy situation.

These soft 'grayish' tones change MASSIVELY once you get an oil based or oil modified finish on their. Even a clear coat will change the appearance. It is ALWAYS best to know BEFORE you drop down 1000sf of "dark" stain on a floor. A colour patch is easier to correct than 1000sf of ooopsa.

Get a quick coat of your chosen finish over each and everyone of your colour patches...then decide.

Great advise Cancork! We had him apply a finish coat over the color and it really changed the final look!

Grays are popular, dark walnut, jacobean, and espresso our top selling colors.

It looks great so far! We ended up with 2 parts grey and one part Jacobean, as the 50/50 was too brown for what we were looking for. They have the stain down, and two coats of urethane. They are coming back on monday to do a buff and another final coat of urethane.

Here are some photos, including one in which I had them leave a little bit of the older floor where the island will cover. It's cloudy today so not a lot of natural light in the photos. I'll post some final shots once it's completed and we have our floor trim down. Thanks for all of the advice from this site on the process and selecting of colors. If I had not of seen the how different colors will look on your own floor, as well as the change due to popping or adding urethane to the finish, I would not have believed the difference. Thanks again.

The floors are all done and we are extremely happy with the results. Here is a photo with the new wall color, new trim and floor.