Find the best wood floor refinishing company in your area and have them do stain samples on the floors.

I went dark and in reality it’s a medium brown with no orange. I think the stain color is dark walnut.

Provincial is another stain to try. It has a green base to help neutralize the red.

It's fine as is. No reason to spend $5 a square to "fix" anything.

It’s a preference and that was not the question @sigrid @Minardi

The stain between the boards isn't coming out, so you will have highlights if you do not choose something in a very similar value. Also, you will be removing lifespan from the floors if those are not worn through the finish somewhere and need refinishing.

Hi Kimberli - thanks, but that do you mean by the part of removing lifespan. Sorry new to this.

You only get a limited number resands before you have removed the usable part of a wood floor. You may only get a couple of refinishes out of a floor if you want to keep changing color. Doing a vanity resand, instead of a functional resand, means there are many less years of usability for the floor.

A wood floor can last over 100 years if properly cared for, and only refinished when the existing finish is too worn to protect it.

EDIT - Kimberli - your answer above wasn’t there when I posted my comment - mine is marked as posted 29 mins ago - and yours shows 52 mins. I’m pointing this out because I don’t want you to think that I felt the need to explain your answer!

What Kimberli means is that solid hardwood floors can be refinished a limited number of times (engineered wood floors can be refinished fewer times - some can’t be refinished at all - some that have thick veneer layer are able to be refinished 3-4 times).

If your hardwood floors have been refinished recently (or have an intact top coat) - refinishing them to change the color of the stain may be considered wasteful to some. There are others who would not hesitate to use one of the refinishing times in order to have floors that are a color that is more appealing to them.

If you have 3/4” tongue and groove solid hardwood floors, they can be refinished about 9-10 times based upon some quick research. That number could vary depending upon whether there has been some type of damage to them that requires a deeper sanding to resolve (e.g., some cupping from water damage that can be fixed by extra sanding - or maybe a darker urine stain from a dog if you don’t want a darker stained floor). Also, if someone just does a light sanding to remove the top coat (while keeping the same color stain) - the amount of wood removed would be less than a ”normal” refinishing job (I think it’s called screening - but not sure).

I am getting ready to refinish my red oak floors. I’ve had my floors for quite awhile - and it should be time to have them refinished (although, my floors look pretty nice still because the original top coat has worn well.

We’ve also been a ”shoes off” family - which definitely extends the life of your wood floors.

I’m not a super OCD ”no shoes” person - I know that this is a controversial topic on Houzz. I didn’t force my daughters to always remove their shoes - they simply prefer not wearing shoes inside the house, and I’ve always kicked my heels off when getting home from work + immediately changed out of my work clothes into something comfy + we’ve always had small dogs).

I could wait to refinish them - but I also want to change the stain color of my floors:

I’m also about to renovate my kitchen - the cabinets are in pretty good shape (were custom built) - but they are partial overlay doors/drawers (as you can see on my island on the left of the above photo) + I have the dreaded red oak arched doors on my upper cabinets (lowers are just straight raised paneled doors doors/drawer fronts - but still partial overlay).

If I posted photos of my floors, I’m sure I’d receive comments telling me that I shouldn’t refinish them.

I wanted to see if I could capture the exact color - you can see more red in the above photo.

FYI - every photo I took, Baxter decided to “photo bomb” - and he’s pretty adorable (even though he desperately needs a professional haircut! He just turned two on 7/2 - and finally weighs over 3 lbs - 3.1 😂).

Don’t let others make you feel bad about refinishing your floors - MANY people on Houzz (and on renovation shows) will simply rip out red oak floors vs. refinishing them in order to tone down the orange tint that has developed. Some people will rip out red oak (and sometimes white oak) flooring because the boards are narrow (even if the stain color looks fine).

You have both orange toned red oak + narrow boards - and have decided to refinish them instead of replacing them. I replaced all the carpet in my home with wood floors - the entire second floor + two rooms on the first floor - and went with engineered European Oak boards in a wide width (5 or 6 mm veneer wear layer). Some people tried to talk me into ripping out all of the narrow red oak on my first floor - in order to have it all match. While all matching would have been nice, I don’t have an open floor plan - and thought it was wasteful to remove a lot of 3/4” solid red oak that’s never been refinished. I actually was going to just have matching red oak installed - but my SO wanted the wider planks (so, I decided to figure out transitions).

Do I like the wide plank European Oak floors better? Yes. Would I rather have only one type of flooring throughout my home (other than in the upstairs bathrooms + laundry room which are tiled)? Yes. But I didn’t want to put quite a bit of perfectly fine red oak flooring into a landfill.

I’m NOT judging anyone who makes a different decision than I did - just like you shouldn’t be judged if you refinish your red oak floors because you hate the current stain color.

10 1/4" x 5/8" European French Oak CHARACTER Unfinished (MICRO BEVEL) | Hurst Hardwoods On sake unfinished for $3.69 4mil wear layer. Use Ciranova Ecofix Plus Matte water ploy to finish.

People can be really weird about wood and brick. Just because it looks fine doesn’t mean the homeowner shouldn’t change it to something she likes better.

Thanks all. The suggestions and insight have been really helpful!

@dani that was very helpful and the dog photo is the best!

Nicki - happy that my comment was helpful - I just realized how LONG it was - OOPS!

I think the dog photo is the best also - he’s my little baby!

@dani so cute😍

I have always found darker stains just do a better job of taking out the red and walnut often is a good choice . There are all kinds of finishes that standup fairly well to a small dog with constanly clipped nails . I have huge dogs a wood floor would have been toast in a year no matter the finish.

@patricia. helpful - thanks!