I definitely think the lighter of the two you posted, and even think still think there might not be enough contrast between the floors and your cabinets. I also have to echo what Shannon said about dark floors showing everything. The rental house we lived in while building tested my sanity with its dark floors.

This morning with some Mineral spirits. We turned the end panel sideways to block the natural light and the Special Walnut looked very red. Then we turned the end panel a different direction and it looked ok again. Ugh.

I might go to Sherwin Williams and get some of their mixes. We are wondering if we need something with a little bit of gray.

I have to make a decision in about 24 hrs. No stress at all. Everything’s great ;-)

Both the old and new floors are red oak. In the areas that they laced in the old and new and they sanded you can’t tell the difference. I know that doesn’t mean they’ll take stain the same but not much we can do about it.

First pic above has the end panel blocking the large window. And the lights on in the house. Second pic has the end panel facing the window (natural light).

Those pics you show, the unstained floor looks prettiest to me. I’d leave it natural, and do 3 coats of poly for a durable finish.

Thanks, all. We are giving some more thought and thinking about going much lighter for contrast. Natural scares me bc our red oak is very pink in some areas.

Stay tuned. More samples coming. Going to run out of floor space soon. Only a small section of the floor has been sanded to test samples.

I know you are supposedly on a deadline, but do you want to live with a floor color you hate for the next 10 years before you refinish them again? Tell the floor guy you need more samples in a few different areas.

Did your floor guy talk about water popping?

Our red oak. Really pink, right? My two biggest fears are coming home to pink or orange floors.

That picture of the Ebony looks really nice!! Do you have more?

Are you doing water poly or oil poly? If you go dark like Ebony, you should consider water popping and oil poly. Like 4 or 5 coats. Light will always have a pink cast.

We are doing water poly.

I just brought home a bunch of samples and nothing is really turning out the way I thought it would based on the color chip, so that was a lot of money spent to rule stains out. So be it. Better than making a costly mistake.

We sort of like Weathered Oak. It’s light and has the slightest hint of gray. Will it be too pink? As of right now, it’s the front runner.

Photo:
Weathered Oak and Driftwood
Special Walnut and Provincial

DLM has Weathered Oak if you can find some pictures of her floors. Really nice, almost natural color that tones down the yellow imo.

we have Antique Brown. It was a little darker than what I wanted but I wanted a true brown without going orange on my white oak..so my floor guy gave me Antique Brown and Natural 2 to 1. Perfect color for me. All water based.

i had Special Walnut on my red oak, oil based in my last house. After a few yrs I felt it went slightly orange.

If you you don’t have the poly on your sample colors, you really can’t tell what the color will look like...according to my floor guy. Hard decision. Good luck.

If your main objective is to combat the red ....go to a very good paint store and ask for a green based color...the green cuts the red...this takes a pro or a colorist to recognize this...

I would start with a light color...you can always go darker...

Weathered Oak on red oak looks reddish.

The second photo you posted is absolutely beautiful!

Thanks, everyone. Still undecided and now I have a headache. Taking a break from starting at them. Will take another look in the morning and make a decision. I think it's between Special Walnut and Weathered Oak. So afraid to make a mistake. We are leaving town and will come home to completed floors.

That would be scary for me. I'd want to be there to see if the stain is dark enough or they need to apply another coat before its polyed or they need to add stain to the poly. Maybe they could text you a picture?

Yes, he'll send some photos but I know I won't really be able to tell over the phone so I am just hoping I get it right. Special Walnut might be the safe route. Weathered Oak is so very pretty, but I'm afraid of the pink.

Hope your head feels better soon.

Just a thought . . . when I'm unsure about a project detail, I often ask the trades for their opinion, e.g. "what would you do if it were your house". I've gotten some stellar advice. The tradespeople do this stuff all day/every day, and see the good, the bad and the ugly. They're able to visualize the finished project which I sometimes have difficulty doing.

Good luck on your project.

I’d try Jacobean. It has some green in it. Green cancels red in the red oak floor. Very pretty color like a medium brown.

I would absolutely go natural. Remember, prior to HGTV, no one had " orange" or " red" floors. They were simply beautiful and classic.

I think we are going with Special Walnut. The darker shade in it picks up the color of the island cabinet. I feel like it will work with various wood tones of furniture throughout the house. Just a good classic brown.

The Weathered Oak is very pretty. It is so tempting. Could be fabulous. But the pink really scares me. Most of what I read says don’t do gray stains on red oak bc the pink will come through over time. Since Weathered Oak has that hint of grey, I am hesitant. In some areas, it is a beautiful ashy color and in other areas it is definitely pink.

We also redid our front stairs with a new red oak banister and matte black balusters and I guess I envisioned it looking more traditional than what Weathered Oak would do to it. Again, could be fabulous, but maybe I’m just a chicken.

Special Walnut is pretty and I feel it’s a safe, classic choice.

I’ll be back later to tell you’ve I’ve changed my mind (which I am quickly losing...or have lost). ;-) Thanks, everyone.

Oh, I found out my flooring guy planned on using oil poly. We can still do water poly. Is that what we should do? Whatever we do on the floors, we’ll do on the front stairs. The oil poly will amber over time, right? Water poly stay true to the color but needs more coats, hence some extra cost.

Pictures: Special Walnut and Weathered Oak

I like the lighter choice. It feels fresher and cleaner.

It looks from your photo like the special walnut was put over another color?

Use just one coat.

If it were me, I'd do the water poly. I've never liked the way the oil-based poly yellows. (It starts out more yellow and that increases with age).

We did water poly. So far, we like it (4 weeks in). Another thing you’ll have to decide with the water based is the level of sheen you want - matte, satin, or semi-gloss were our choices. We went with satin, and it’s a very different look than our old oil based poly. I wouldn’t have minded more shine, but DH thought less shine looked more modern.

@Diana. Yes, just one coat of stain. We put some mineral spirits on it this morning to get a sense of the true color. You’re seeing the wet mineral spirits.

I’m pretty sure we are doing a satin finish, but I will confirm that with husband and contractor.

If you water popped it, it would take the stain more uniformly. But then I think you would have to use oil based poly or it would feel a little rough. There is also a pre-stain conditioner for raw wood that helps the stain absorb more evenly and you can still use water based poly. Even with water based poly, over time, you will see the color change slightly, especially in areas that get more sunlight.

I love the special walnut as pictured today with mineral spirits. The way the wood grain is accented will tie beautifully with your dark island cabinetry, and the lighter stain of the tighter grained wood is a gorgeous contrast and will pull together the lighter elements of the room, whether that's furniture, wall color, or soft decor. Lighting is going to change things from hour to hour and season to season, but to me, this stain doesn't look pink. Good luck! I hope you love the finished result, whatever you choose!

I vote special walnut I like the tones, plus the other does look too washed out to me.

You might ask your floor guy to confirm, but I think that with red oak floors, no matter what stain you use, you will always have some warmth come through - no necessarily "orange" or "pink" but a warmth - that is what makes oak my floor of choice.

I love the picture suzyq53 posted of the Special Walnut. It's not just the "safe" choice - I think it will be beautiful.

My red oak floors are 20 years old and in desperate need of being refinished. I'm not sure of the finish the builder used (we are not the original owners of the house) but they look exactly like the first picture suzyq53 posted of the weathered oak. I still actually like the color because all my cabinets are dark, but if we ever do get them redone, I will probably go a bit darker.

As an aside, I have relatives that just refinished their red oak floors and used Jacobean. It's pretty but shows every single speck of dirt and dust, and you see footprints everywhere. So for that reason I wouldn't go too dark. I think Special Walnut is a nice lighter-darker brown.

I like Special Walnut if the water based finish will not cause ambering as my old based finish did in the past.

feeling perplexed re the use of mineral spirits. Did your floor guy tell you to do this?

Red, when you're trying to judge color, "wetting" the stained area with some mineral spirits helps replicate the look you'll get with your resin-based finish over top, at least in terms of color and tone. Dried stain doesn't look the same as stained wood with the finish coat applied, it's usually quite a bit lighter before the finish goes on. It's just a little trick to assess color without having to fully finish a patch of floor then sand it all down to do the WHOLE floor.

I agree with Holly and I don’t like staining the actual floor on raw wood. Sanding that off reduces thickness and can look odd. Don’t put more samples on floor. Use sample spare boards.

Done with samples. Getting ready to leave the house. Thank you so much for everyone’s input. It made me consider some options I wouldn’t have otherwise, but in the end I set out for a medium brown color that worked with the island stain and I think (I hope) I ended up with something that will work. I will be sure to post pics once it’s done.

Price increase for water poly was about $1875. More than I was expecting. Is it worth it? An extra $1.25 per square ft. I know water poly was a must for a natural color or a grey stain, but what about with the Special Walnut?

Would love to see the photos when you are finished!

great choice! we just contracted someone to refinish our existing red oak floors and to add matching floors to the rest of the house. I like the natural look of our red oak- its golden, not pink or orange- when we were getting bids I asked about oil vs water poly and they all said some variation on the theme that in their opinions natural red oak begs for the oil based and falls flat without it, so we are going with oil and hoping it will all age the same as what we have already!

Looks fantastic!

Very nice. Hope it is everything you wanted.

It really looks great! Good choice on the stain.

Finally in the house and the stain looks great. However, the finish is not so great. Ugh. Contractor coming back out to look tomorrow. It’s rough in spots and the sheen is uneven (looks glossy or maybe just thicker in some areas). There are a few areas where there is debris under the finish. I think I will start another post to get some opinions on where I go from here with the contractor.

Posted under Flooring and Remodeling.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5770205/hardwood-floor-refinishing-is-this-acceptable

Did you go with Special Walnut? And did you have white or red oak?

Yes, we did Special Walnut on Red Oak. I think it is a good medium brown. I'm glad I didn't go any darker because it shows enough dirt and dust as it is.

The color looks great!

Thank you for this post! I’m about to pick stain and special walnut is my gut choice but with so many choices I was second guessing, until now! Your floors are beautiful , hope mine come out as nice 🤞🏻

I know this is older post, but also know photos are helpful. We used provincial on our red oak. Pics are with all lights out on snowy day (but lots of lights because blinds are not up yet). Its a satin finish, but as yiu can see when light hits it still reflects light. Overall we are very happy. Rich color that isnt too dark or too light (and changes with lighing). No orange - rich brown/golden brown/dark brown are color variations in the wood. waterbased poly.