househappy, the cedar beams you see in the photo are stained with Early American. As you can see, they blend with the flooring and the door trim (which is stained with SW Walnut Wainscott). Early American on oak flooring won't be as dark and a touch of orange will show thru. Your flooring guys will have several cans of left over stains and before they begin, will/should stain patches of the floor for you to see (at least 1ft square). They'll sand it off before starting after you select a color. We had enough stains around, so I played on a scrap piece of flooring before that day - but we still let them put down the various stains for me to see. Like gabeach stated, the paint store will be happy to do test samples also - I did this on the cedar before deciding. They'll do the already mixed for free, but if you want to see a speciality mix (like Walnut Wainscott) you'll have to buy a quart.

Water popping the wood make the stain take much better. Usually it will look like the sample. Without water popping it tends to come out lighter and sometimes, not as consistent. 2 coats of stain??? Stain is applied and then the excess is buffed off. If you apply stain again, it rarely has any effect, as the wood absorbs as much stain as it is going to take, on the first application. Is this the Minwax stain and finish all in one??

I pulled up very old carpet in my parents old home, which was laid over pet-stained hardwood floors that looked just as bad as yours currently do. I was rehabbing the house to sell it (my parents had died) and a home with hardwood floors in my area sells better than a home with carpet in it. I talked to a competent floor refinisher who told me exactly what yours did - that he could make it better, but it would likely not be "perfect." I decided to give it a try and I'm so glad I did. When he was done, it looked great. Some spots he was able to make completely disappear. The worst ones were still visible, but over all it looked (to me) exactly like an old floor in an old house should look....if that makes any sense at all. It fit with the patina of an older home way better than a perfect/new hardwood floor would. Buyers LOVED the floors. So my advice is that if you can find a really good floor person who knows what they are doing, AND if you have reasonable expectations you should be fine. You're in the same boat I was. Your house is not new construction so as long as you don't expect perfection in the floors, I hope you're as happy with them as I was with mine.

Had I done this job your complaints (except for the inconsistent stain on the tread) would be covered by the disclaimer "Does not include any touchup painting or a complete dust cleanup" that goes on every proposal. If asked, I will mask off adjacent surfaces but stain and finish often work their way up behind the tape. I also charge more to do so. My position is that if an adjacent surface is just a standard paint, it's cheaper to repaint than to mask off, considering that there still may be some touchup needed. If the adjacent surface is faux finished, stone or finished cabinetry, we will take extra care. Of course that costs more so we charge more. I regularly tell clients not to finish paint before the floor sanding and finishing. We'll be sanding next to vertical surfaces at least twice, then applying finish. Are you sure the finisher didn't tape the base? In one of your pictures the base looks good but the adjacent casing appears to have the issue I mentioned, that the stain wicked up between the tape and the paint. We use dust pickup so generally we don't leave much dust but accidents do happen Like a Trio bag blowing off). We don't charge a penny for dust cleanup and don't do any beyond what is required to get the floor done right. Part of this is because my guys are more expensive than dedicated cleaners (and less skilled) while another part is that fact that we're often among the last people on a job and may be expected to clean up messes from every trade that preceded us without compensation. Contractors here usually hire a professional crew to clean from top to bottom after all the trades are done. A skilled painter shouldn't have any problem touching up your trim. Walls and trim are painted more frequently than floors are finished so this is typically not a challenge.