I think the oil base is more durable. I know this is not the look you were going for, but I think it looks beautiful.

You will need to sand the floors back down and start all over. Tell them you want the raw/unfinished red oak look.

Start over. Be prepared that it STILL will not appear as it does in the raw.....may even lean pink.

Personally? I think they look lovely. As is.

PS.... there WAS a time when very light maple flooring was allllllllll the rage, but you may not have even been born or even thought about ,yet: )

The floor looks warm and gorgeous to me though not to you. If you keep it, rethink paint choices so walls harmonize with floors--this direction rather than gray, black, or starck white;

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The white oak look has been trending along I think because homeowners and renters are getting tired of the gray floor look--dreary, and if you have to have gray then walls are better and easier to change. White oak is a very attractive choice if that's what you have to have, but your "mistake" looks fantastic.

Water based will still darken the look. It will not be the raw look without a different contractor, a ton more processing, and a whole lot more money spent.

Don’t be a fad follower. You will always be behind a trend, and out of money chasing them. The look you want is already fading in popularity to deeper and warmer tones. Just like you have.

We had our red oak floors refinished - sanded down raw and topped with a water-based poly in a satin finished. Yes, the poly makes it a slightly darker than when it’s raw and a few of the boards have a tinge of pink. But we love how they turned out. Get what YOU like. :)

Here they are (the floors were the first phase in our kitchen reno)

There's not much to do at this point but have the floors resanded and prepared for a new coat of polyurethane. As others have said the floors will darken once again though. Did you discuss the look you wanted to achieve with your contractor before he did the work?

Thank you everyone! they do look beautiful but i am going for more of a modern look and i just dont think this fits it at all.

i was reading paint stripper can remove Poly- any experience with this? would this help?

Not sure why you think warmer wood floors won't fit at all. But if you believe that, then just get them resanded. Note that a flooring Commentor said that. Alternatively, for the money you spend getting the beautiful floors redone, you could hire a designer to help you get your modern look via art, furnishings, rugs, lighting.

@Norwood Architects yes we spoke many times about the look i was trying to acheive. i made it very clear that we wanted this to have as little red as possible. i even asked him if bleaching them of using bonas red out product was an option but he reassured me that the poly would lighten the floors even more compared to their natural state. i should have done more research on this but assumed that my contractor knew what he was doing.

The floors look very nice, and they will easily provide a great backdrop to a Modern look. Modern is not going to be a failure if you don't have caucasian fleshy pinky pale floors. You actually got a more timeless and durable look than what you wanted.

The truth is that are not going to get the look you want with that low budget traditional finishing contractor, and the price you paid for his work. You have to decide if this is the hill you want to die on. Because you might as well replace them. It will be a wash, moneywise. Sanding the floors again removes 1 time that you can do that in the future. Depending on how many times they have been refinished, you may be down to the last sanding that is possible. That is a measurement that you need to take for yourself, and then decide if you want to move to a different contractor and spend more money on that hill.

When you say contractor, I hope you mean a a guy who has been in the wood floor refinishing business for a long time, preferably second or third generation of a family owned business!

Did he not do several stain/finish samples on the sanded floor for you to look at? Something like this?

It would be helpful if you started an Ideabook on "Modern Living Room" to share with Commentors. Also, what furniture and art are you bringing?

Modern and transitional with warm hardwood floors:

I think your floors look great!! But, if you are not happy, I suppose you have to start over with sanding.