What you have in your pics is a factory finished floor. It is difficult to get that kind of consistent look when staining unfinished, especially if the unfinished has boards with mixed sawing characteristics. The face sawn material will take up and hold the least pigment and will be the yellow boards you are seeing. We can sometimes get a more even look by using a sand grit sequence to allow more pigment to be deposited on the floor and by doing what we call waterpopping; you may still get variations, but it will look as even as it's going to get. I don't do this...but some of my colleagues will first use an analine dye and then, when it is dry, will follow that up with a pigmented stain. Talk with your finisher.

We just had our floors refinished (to get rid of the old, very worn, butterscotch look) so I understand your challenge. i wanted a warm medium-brown that wasn't orange-y. The look I was aiming for is the larger photo when you scroll down in the link below, which reads "This is more what our floors look like today" or something similar. Studying the photo I decided I wanted to highlight the grain but to also allow the individual colors of the boards to show through. I liked the life in this floor. It took me a while to realize that I was looking for a less opaque stain (hence the natural). I have NO idea what stains were used on the floor in the photo (and cannot give credit since I don't know the origin of the photo), but I feel we achieved something really close using a mix of 1 provincial: 1 jacobean : 2 natural. This was on red oak, using a different brand of stain (Bona), with solvent-based Swedish finish over it. I think using 2 parts natural allow the red tint of the red oak to show on some boards, which makes it warm. I am crazy about our new floors. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: similar look to our floors

Wow, thanks! Moonshadow, the pictures of your floors and stairs have convinced DH that he likes Golden Pecan (yes, we are easily swayed!). We have decided that we want the grain evened out a bit and the Puritan Pine does have a nice color, but the grain stands out more than we like. I agree about getting lighter floors, although I love the look of that English Chestnut. We have two pugs (shedders--- one black and one fawn) and two teenagers. Teenagers seem to be harder on things than little ones ;) Honestly, I think I'd be happy with anything that didn't look TOO brown or gray. I lean towards warmer colors. This is SO tough. Thanks, PennyLaney

I'm in the process of stripping Penofin from my cedar deck. Not the same thing as Penofin for hardwood but this may help. Deck in PNW. Penofin applied 5 years ago. Zero maintainance. The deck started looking pretty bad after 4 years but last summer I didn't have time to refinish it. Now in year 5, it looks real bad--dark gray and mildewed. I thought there was no finish left but it turns out the Penofin grayed and mildewed and there is quite a lot of finish left. Perhaps if it was washed once a year with a mildewicide it would be looking better. But lets be realistic, it had zero maintainance before, no reason to believe the deck fairys are going to come by and wash my deck for me. So I would say that with maitainence one could get 4 to 5 years in the PNW out of Penofin. When its time to refinish your deck, Penofin strips very easily with sodium hydroxide. On the downside is the smell. Very bad on a hot sunny day. The deck was unusable for the rest of the summer after I refinished it! I could still detect faint wiffs of the odor the next summer a year after it was applied. For this reason, I will not be using Penofin again.