Thanks for the advice! Also, we are going with cherry cabinets. I want to make sure the floors compliment and don't clash with them!

I agree with Ellsworth......If you can afford to match throughout that is the best way to go.......I love red oak. I have it throughout my house and it is a beautiful and interesting wood.

What does your architect and your builder recommend?

Thanks for the advice! Our builder is also recommending to keep it consistent. Red oak is a bit more money than white oak through them but if it is going to look bad to have a mismatch it is probably worth it to pay the higher price. Looking at pictures online some red oak looks really nice and warm, but then from other pictures I get worried that everything will just look pink:)

Funny ...... years ago red oak was the less expensive option ... Times have changed

Yes, red oak used to be used as sub flooring under linoleum in houses built prior to WWII!!

I am concerned about the red oak floors with the cherry cabinets. That's a LOT of red and it's not the same red.

We had red oak floors and cherry cabinets,however, we stained the floors a medium colour and it worked really well with the natural cherry cabinets .

I agree with Anglophilia that your kitchen cabinets should not be cherry. That's too much wood and I think they would clash. Why not paint them a beautiful neutral or contrasting shade. If you're going more formal, try black cabinets. If you're more contemporary, try a soft chalky white. Or if you haven't bought the cupboards yet, what about a beautiful lightly industrial look in metal for the doors and if the rest of the cabinets are wood, paint them a dove gray to soften the look.

Are you planning for any stain (there are light ones, I have one on my white oak floors) or clear coat only? Lighter floors means different things to different people - my floors are light but they are not natural. And are the cherry cabinets stained or clear coat?

We have white oak downstairs, white oak treads and then red oak upstairs. We used a medium stain. There is a difference in color between the red and white oak. Obviously, ours is seen at the top of the stairs leading to the 2nd floor. It's noticeable to me, but I'm obviously looking for it. I wouldn't say it's significantly noticeable and I bet no one else would notice if I didn't mention it. The red oak has a more orange/pink hue vs the white oak is a more neutral brown. It's a long story on why we ended up with different woods on different floors. My preference would have been to have white oak throughout the whole house.

You can find white oak treads pretty easily on various online sites that specialize in stair parts. Maybe you can purchase the treads for your builder? The difference in price between the white and red oak might offset the treads? Or he could give you a credit?

To be safe go with the same in both areas, but for a specific answer.... It depends.

There really is no single thing that is Red Oak or White Oak. There are at least ten different types of trees that produce White Oak and ten different trees that produce Red Oak. Many White Oaks are "redder" than Red Oaks. So in the end, you have to just look at the two woods side by side.

In Red Oak the pores are open, while in White Oak the pores are plugged (this, rather than the color tendancies, is the absolute difference). White Oak is for boats because it is resistant to water damage, Red Oak isn't. With some effort they can be stained to look virtually identical and neither deepen as they age, so that color will remain consistent, however, they take stain very differently. Red Oak soaks up stain while White Oak leaves most of the stain on the surface of the wood.

I prefer White Oak everywhere, I love White Oak for kitchens because of its resistance to damage, in the end though, I wouldn't make a decision based on the Oak species of my floor although I would try to be consistent...

Good Luck

Love my Red Oak Common grade, I love the knots and dark patches, total dark board next to a lighter one. Think it gives more personality to the floors if theres such a thing...

Keep it all the same you regret it later if you don't . I'm surprised wo is cheaper than ro, in our parts wo is more than ro. I personally like wo better, tighter grain, looks more consistent, it is also bit harder. Why can't builder get stair parts in wo? with the popularity of wo in the last couple of yrs, its much easier to get stair parts in wo. Good luck.

Match the floor to the stairs. Red Oak will look good with cherry cabinets. Make sure you have plenty of contrast between the floor color and the cabinet color. Don't try to match the color of the floors to the cabinets. Red Oak is actually lighter in color that white oak.

Somerset Red Oak

What do your stairs look like with the somerswt red oak?