Stick with traditional colors and avoid the gray tones.

red oak will always have that slight pink tone if you choose a lighter color

This one was refinished from a dark brown to this natural finish. If you don't mind the pinkish tone, do this:

to downplay the red tone, pick a neutral or ash based color, nothing with red in it. green (or the ash tones) will tend to cancel out some of the red.

I don't recommend Minwax, but this will show you some options

My floors are Appalachian red oak and Bona products was used. If I’m not mistaken they used a tannin bleed block to block out some of the red. I love them.

Bona Early American, water popped. Finished with traffic HD, semi gloss.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea.

Stay away from gray. That color style has gone away and we dont get any requests for it any more. I would consider provincial or special walnut as to possibilities. See if your contractor can make some samples for you.

Thank you all so much - your photos are all gorgeous! We spoke to the guy at the floor company doing the work last night. He also left samples of the weathered oak alone, with the gray stain and the gray stain alone. In all of them, some of the floor boards definitely showed pink. He suggested the lightest we go is Special Walnut stain, water based finish. We are deciding between satin and matte, leaning towards satin. He said it's a good true brown that's neutral, not too dark and will really go with all paint colors and furniture and not be an on-trend color that will get dated. I'll share pics when it's all done :) Thanks!

Beautiful!

Thank you!

A satin finish will look lovely on this colour. Most satins start out life looking 'shiny'. Relax! That's normal. They will look like this while they are 'fresh' (the first month or so). Once they age in a little (a few months) they reduce down to a lovely 'glow'. Not dull like matte, but not shiny like semi-gloss either. I think you will be very happy with satin. Again, let it be 'shiny' at first knowing it will settle down given a bit of time.

So you went with special walnut and love it? We're in last minute decision mode with our red oak. Want not too light, not too dark, rich, warm and not red/orange. Any last thoughts?

Amy-we just refinished our red oak floors, and I completely understand the anxiety involved in choosing a color!

We were ready for a change from the light oak, and wanted a medium, rich warm color. We chose Duraseal Chestnut in the satin finish (not English Chestnut--which looked quite red in our sample patch). We are VERY happy with it. Not too light, not too dark. Dust doesn't seem to show up much--maybe a bit more than our light oak.

We bought a "robo vac", and run it every day--easy peasy! I mop about once a week, spot mop in the kitchen as needed.

Yes! We went with special walnut on our red oak and are super happ!

Looks great!

Do you know what grade the oak is? (No 1, 2, select?). Thank

you!

Sorry I just saw this! I don't know, I can try to find out, I'm sorry!

Your floors are beautiful! I have a question though, the top picture without the satin looks so different from the bottom picture with the satin....is it just the different lighting or did the satin finish change the color that much? Is the first picture without sun on the floor?

It's definitely the lighting! From stain to satin, it was a more finished look, but I didn't find it drastic at all. Let me see if I have a better picture! And thank you!!

Thanks for your help!! So hard picking out a stain.

I agree! The floors look great. Such a good choice.

@jamw923, do you know if your installer used Bona Special Walnut and Bona Traffic Satin finish? We are having additional red oak installed and old red oak flooring refinished in two weeks, and I'm struggling with whether to go natural or medium brown. We have a German Shepherd. Any thoughts on whether the medium tone scratches easy or shows lint, dust, and hair easily? That's why I'm really leaning more toward natural. Many thanks!!

Michelle please let me know what you decide our situations are the same..

@lv2plyglfgal, we went with Bona ClassicSeal and Traffic HD satin. I am thrilled with the light, natural look. I was going to go with NaturalSeal, but i could not get past the raw look and the pink hue.

Those look fabulous! No pink blocker correct? Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! No pink blocker. One coat of Bona ClassicSeal and two coats of Bona Traffic HD in satin.

Did you have any problems getting the old to match the new? Did it take the classic seal pretty much the same? Did you try both classic and natural next to each other? Do you have a photo of that?

Tested both (ClassicSeal on left; Natural NaturalSeal on right). The naturalseal truly looked like the raw wood, only slightly pinker to me. It felt very unfinished, and I knew that would bother me.

You can see in the in progress photo how he tied the new into the old. I can’t tell at all in the finished flooring. He even had to sand bevels out of the old flooring.

In this photo, the first three rows of boards are Bona Drifast seal (I liked this but it is oil-based so it will continue to amber), second three boards are ClassicSeal, and the next big chunk is Natural Seal. I hated the three darker stains we tried and knew right away I wanted to stay light.

Progress photo showing new with old

This is so helpful Michele! Looks like you made a great choice.. I’m still a ways out, but seeing this gives me hope mine will turn out good too. Thanks again

We are about to do a kitchen remodel and our red wood hard floors that are in the main living room, hallway and bedrooms will be carried through in the new kitchen. I don't like the red, orange or pink hue in red oak, but I need to make the best of it. I'm looking at all the pictures posted from 2 years ago and wondering how everyone is liking their floors. We are wanting to go light, to give a white oak look, but everything we see is too pick. We may just pick a medium brown, but not sure what color is best. Any thoughts or recommendations on either? We need to make decisions soon. Any tips would be appreciated!

We just did special walnut and realized after the fact how it also really depends on the wood. This is what it looks like and jts
Definitely different in different lights. I am struggling with the red of it… especially deciding what color to paint the walls.

jamw923, Hi, do you recall the brand, stain color & sealer you used?