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.

SJ we were pretty clear we didn’t want yellow but I’ll ask him exactly what finish he used on that small section. We’re doing water based poly, that much I know. G & S I don’t think he has experience with additives. So maybe my best bet is to sand and restain. I really hate to do that because it will be an extra 1000 and also set our timeline back for the rest of the remodel. But trying to tint it at this point sounds a little risky if it’s not something he’s done. So if we do that sounds like we should try walnut, provincial, antique brown, and Jacobean for a green tint to counteract the red? For the record this is the sample we chose (top one) which is the 50/50 medium brown and gray. To me it looks nothing like how the floors come out.

Yes...things look different from the sample patch (ahem...assuming your refinisher offered a sample patch ON YOUR WOOD floor) and from final application of STAIN. The stain dries or cures (can take a while depending on what it is made of...like 72 hours for oil based stain is very normal). Then the CHOICE of finish makes a HUGE difference. The oil based finishes (the cheap stinky ones that cause migraines and nose bleeds) turn orange. Each coat gets a stronger and stronger orange tone to it. It can cause white paper to turn orange/amber colour. These are the finishes that get darker and darker with age (oxidization). An oil modified finish can turn yellow. Not as harsh a colour as the oil finish but enough to get floors to turn colour. Again, each coat added creates a stronger yellow tone. These finishes ALSO get darker as they age...but not as bad as the oil finishes. Now for the water based products. These are what we call a 'clear coat'. They do NOT turn orange or yellow. They do NOT get darker as they age. Traditionally they are more expensive than the oil modified and can be much more expensive than the oil based. A VERY GOOD water based finish will be a 2 part product such as Bona Traffic HD or Loba 2K Supra AT. These are the big boys and they can triple the cost of the finish (compared to oil based). And then there is the lighting situation you viewed the floors under. The look of natural day light hitting your floors will be different from evening light with artificial lighting. Go ahead and view your floors at roughly the same time as you first saw them (right after the application). And while you are there chatting with the refinisher, go ahead and take photos of the FINISH or the can that it comes in. And feel free to up load photos with your colour patch that you chose vs. the finish as it looks now.

Red out works similar to how wood bleach works to remove the pink undertones in the red oak. If you are trying to make your red oak floor look like white oak, this product will help you achieve that. If you like how your floors look when they are sanded down to barewood and don't mind the slight pinkish undertones that red oak tends to have, I would use the naturalseal. This product has a bit of white in it so it will also help keep a lighter natural red oak wood look without it looking bleached out. Using water-based finish is also ideal if you don't like the orangey red tones so your floor guy is on the right path there. Oil based poly will amber over time and eventually you'll end up with exactly you are trying to get rid of. Not an expert... just sharing the feedback I received elsewhere on the same topic as I am having my orange red oak floors refinished as well.