This doesn't quite address your question, but one thing I'll offer up: consider painting the walls something that works better with the woodwork, and then add an area rug.

I'm not crazy about this floor either, but it certainly matches the wood well. And the woodwork is quite nice. The wall colour, besides being...unpleasant (it looks like, "what do you get when you cross a salmon with pepto bismol") stands in such high contrast to everything that it makes other things look worse.

Cork flooring can be stripped, sanded and then stained...if you have the budget, the nerves and the time. Roughly 1 in 40 floor finishers will have attempted something like this...which means you will be paying top dollar to change the look of a cork floor.

The other concern with sand/refinish approach is: the pattern is always (OK, it is 98% of the time) a veneer. The pattern you see in this picture is only 0.5mm worth of pattern. If you want the pattern to STAY...but a different stain you could be in for one heck of a problematic refinish. If you want to get RID of the pattern (we call this one "Rocky Bush" which is a "love it or hate it" pattern) then you will find your flooring person will have a better chance of getting you what you want.

My first question is: Is this a floating (click together) or a glue down floor? If it is a floating floor - don't bother refinishing simply take it up and donate it to habitat for humanity. If this is a glue down floor that will cost too much for refinishing then lay a new floor over top.

Cork is one of the best forms of "underlay" material you can ever own. You can float a "bad" laminate over this floor and achieve the most amazing "feeling" laminate you could imagine. You can float cork floor, laminate or an engineered hardwood; glue down hardwood or mortar in a ceramic tiled floor if you want.

No matter what you have, you can do something with it. If you want to glue/mortar down another floor then I suggest you sand off the finish and then glue straight down to the raw cork.

A sanded/restained cork floor takes a tremendous amount of work/money...and you have to be fully aware that the stain you want might not "happen" with raw cork. You need someone who has done this at least 3 times in the last 5 years to have any hope of having it turn out well...but it can be done.

Personally, this is not my favourite pattern either. I would float another cork floor over top and enjoy. And there is no need for underlay - the cork floor is the best underlay money can buy.

I would cover it with linoleum. That is what Maroleum is and it is a fantastic product. It's just cork covered with linoleum. Cork is so great to stand on.