Petrified = stone = no longer wood = impressively expensive product only for the ultra rich (the 1% of the 1%). If moving the fridge scares you, then look into the cheapest form of "insurance" on the market: Glide N Guard - appliance rails. You can buy them at home improvement stores for $20/package. They sit underneath the appliance for LIFE. When you move the fridge the feet/wheels GLIDE along the TRACKS...not your floors. I've had HUNDREDS of cork floors installed in kitchens with most people using the Glide N Guard. Everyone SWEARS by them. Dirt cheap insurance against scratching when moving appliances. It is so simple.

You will find more examples on Pinterest btydrvn! If the adjoining room has a painted floor in a diamond pattern it will look more intentional. Nobody will know this is a new floor that has been added. Right now it looks very obvious as the wood is quite different and I don’t think any amount of stain will make it match!

You have a mixture of issues. Issue #1 = Pine does not like to take a stain. It just doesn't like to. It is always a crap shoot when attempting to add a colour to pine or fir. Maple is another wood that is tricky to stain. That's the OVER ARCHING issue. Issue #2 = Old wood has character. It has lived a life already...it is now being asked to live another lifetime. It will be MUCH drier than any other wood anyone has seen. So it takes a special touch (ie. skill = cost) to get an old floor look AMAZING. Issue #3 = Only the SECOND floor the company has worked with Rubio. Rubio is a VERY special product that requires a VERY SPECIAL skill and a VERY GOOD training history with it. You have a low(er) cost company with VERY LITTLE history with Rubio. Rubio needs PERFECT sanding technique. That's why it costs the same to refinish in Rubio than it does to refinish with a high-end poly. The SANDING is painstaking in its detail. You need a VERY skilled crew to work the sanding to the point where the wood is ready for Rubio. And OLD dry wood that DOES NOT like to take a stain = very tough ask. A Rubio refinish *SHOULD take the same 3-7 days (or more) as a regular polyurethane refinish. How long did the company spend in your house working on your floors? How many square feet did you have to refinish?

I don't think people are insulting you. Take or not take their advice, it's based in their experience with wood floors and personal taste and preference. Not personal to you. I had the same problem with my pine wood floors. Didn't like the look of the poly with its tone but learned to live with it. It's expensive to treat wood floors and I had trouble finding a good person to work with redoing mine. Then, with the downstairs flooring, while waiting for the several floor refinishers to call me back, I had an epiphany . . . wax. Ye olde Johnson's paste wax. Rub it on, buff, happy for the rest of the year. It's just as good as the poly, and doesn't have to be sanded off if there's something you don't like about it. That was how they did it in the old days and it ain't broke IMHO and it ain't in need of fixing. So much easier and warmer, even than the low shine poly finishes. I had poly upstairs and wax downstairs. Much preferred the wax . . . Mind you I'm no perfectionist and didn't have dogs.