drbeanie - I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to make mistakes and searching for other input. I had to remodel a kitchen in one of our rental homes before we put it on the market last year. We had to rush to choose things because we were only in town for a very short time. I chose things in a budget and really thought it would look great. I had to see everything from pictures when it was complete, but it was AWFUL. I would have hated to have that kitchen and worried that noone would want to buy it. Luckily, it was someone's taste. I definitely didn't have the same taste as my KD and we parted ways a long time ago. My husband teases me about how much time I spend on GW - but it's been such a great place to get a myriad of opinions from people that aren't going to just be nice and say it looks good to keep from hurting your feelings. This forum has saved my sanity this time around! :) Good luck with your choices!

Someone here has pictures of their natural red oak floors and their quartersawn white oak cabinets. It was a beautiful contrast!! Hopefully she will post to this thread because I can't remember who it was. I did the opposite...quartersawn white oak floors and stained red oak cabinets. Quartersawn oak is more expensive, but has a very different appearance and grain. It really doesn't even look like oak, except for the tone and color of the wood.

I've done jobs with different oil products but used the Rubio only twice. One turned out perfect. It was a mix of White and Pure on rift sawn White Oak. The owner insisted on using a green finish with no solvents and I warned her it was fine except for potential issues with dog accidents. You can probably guess what happened. The second was Super White that we water popped. It ended up with some cloudy areas which points out issues with finishing technique. The floor needs to be sanded perfectly and scrupulously cleaned before oil application, and the finish needs to be removed completely or it will be cloudy. I just finished a natural color job with WOCA. It turned out nice in the end but took a bit of work. We washed the freshly sanded floor with the Wood Cleaner. The effect of the water made the floor look less smooth than desired. We tried extra coats, abraded with an abrasive nylon pad then re-oiled to the same end. Then we re-screened the floor, applied two more coats and it looks great. I think I'd forgo the cleaning step in the future. I like the idea of the Rubio and even have enough material in stock to do my own floor however I like the ease of maintenance and relative simplicity of the WOCA product line. The Rubio Soap is crazy expensive IMO. Coloring my opinion is that my local Rubio distributor is somewhat pathetic. I found a distributor in GA that carries WOCA and Rubio so that will at least put that issue to rest and give me a resource with expertise to draw on. I like the Rubio Smoke, Fumed and Precolor products for the breadth of unique looks it can achieve when used with their products. The bad? It requires more routine maintenance than poly. It's more susceptible to minor spills and stains. You are unlikely to find maintenance product for sale locally, so stock up. I have two older parquet floors in a wood that's no longer available. I plan on sanding it, wire brushing it, then applying a mix of White and Super White with the idea that the floor will go from it's current dark mahogany look, to a coffee with cream color with white in the deeper grain. I don't know that I'd use it in my own kitchen even though I can pay my own workers to change it fairly effortlessly. I am something of a skeptic when reading the claims of the wonders of the new generation of oil finishes, even though I'd like them to be true.

Thanks to everyone. I do like slate but the kitchen is opening up to an addition sitting area and into our master bedroom so I would really like wood floors throughout the rest of the house. The existing pine floors in the great room - which were there when we bought the house - are really beat up and I don't want to use pine in the rest of the house for that reason. Want a much harder wood. But I agree with Fori that it's hard to put two different kinds of wood floors next to each other through a doorway to look right. This is a kitchen remodel with existing natural cherry cabinets which are beautiful so we are reusing them all and adding in a different colored island (Hamburg Grey). The existing floors in the kitchen which will need to be replaced are a prefinished Bellawood natural cherry which I always thought were quite beautiful until I started reading all the posts about making sure your floor is a contrast to your cabinets. Shows what I know! In any event, the cherry floors are also on the softer side and have gotten pretty beat up so would love to find a harder wood for the rest of the house.