I second Johnson Floorings opinion. Red oak in the 2.25" width is SUPER common and very cheap to source. Sure some of the bevels are going to remain...but it is possible to mask the look with a deeper colour floor. When it comes to fading, that has more to do with the WINDOWS and the amount of UV light coming through than the wood. Most wood species NATURALLY fade. That's just the nature of UV rays. There are some STAINS that are NOT STABLE in sunlight. Those unstable stains are often the LIGHT OR MIDGRADE stains like gunstock. So you get a two-fold situation. 1. The wood fades (making the stain appear lighter) 2. The Stain fades (making the wood look lighter) This means you have a faded stain (very pale) on a faded wood (very pale) and you end up with (sigh...you guessed it) a very pale floor. What I know about cork flooring (which fades to off-white in 1 year) STAINS and UV is this: The DARKER the stain the more stable it is in direct sunlight (ie. bad windows with very little UV rating to them). In other words, if you go dark - as you seem to like this idea - you will find your floors are less prone to LOOKING faded. Sure the wood underneath with get lighter but the dark stain will RETAIN most of it's colour. And do yourself a favour by using the SUPER TOUGH finishes. Work with 3 coats of FINISH (don't let them talk you into a sealant/stain and 2 coats...pay the extra and go with 3 coats) of the HIGH END 2 part water based finishes. They are SUPER TOUGH. Bona Traffic HD is the Platinum Standard for toughness. It is followed closely by Loba 2K Supra AT which is harder to find but just as tough. Don't settle for 2 coats of oil based or low-end water based stuff. Go with 3 coats of FINISH. Your household has managed (you plus the previous owner) to 'kill' a 25 year finish in just 17 years. Admittedly the first 11 years was someone else....but it has still occurred. The factor finish is NOT aluminum oxide. Which means the toughest finish was NEVER used on those floors to begin with.

It looks like those floors have been recently refinished. The gloss level appears to be matte. That is a look that is hyper trendy. This trend has been going for the last 5-10 years (depending on where you are). The orange looks very good with the CEILING and the gold/orange trim. You will notice how much the new gray walls clash with the orange trim and the ceilings. For me the gray/orange combo that you have causes my vision to vibrate. That tells me the clash is in the extreme range. It reminds me of the purple/green combination. I'm sorry but if you want gray in this home, you are going to have to change the following: 1. The stone fireplace - the stone is clashing (just a snick) with the gray you have chosen 2. The ceiling - the yellow is clashing with the gray walls (but working 'OKish' with the current fireplace) 3. The deep orange wood floor - this is a big clash with the deep gray on the wall. These are expensive changes. To refinish a wood ceiling takes ++ effort from a professional (effort and time = very expensive). You either have to paint or stain it gray (not a good idea) to get it to work with the gray walls. The window trim is a P.I.T.A.! Again, it is time consuming and expensive. This has to be done to get the dark gray paint to work. The fieldstone fireplace is a subdued 'mortar gray' with hints of orange in it. Believe it or not, the mortar gray is starting clashing with the dark gray on the walls. And then there is the dark orange floors. If you want any gray in that room to work, you must redo the floors. Or you can change the dark gray to something more complimentary to the orange tones in the home. I'm not saying the mint green was a nice option...but there are better options than this stark gray colour. If you find the right gray, you can leave all the other items alone. But the dark gray you have chosen is not working with anything in this home.

OK...let's have a look at what you are playing with. First off, the top layer is where the brown colouring is sitting on...your penny is sitting in the wrong place. It is currently sitting against one of the plies of wood. Your 'microbevels' are not micro. They appear to be regular bevels = quite deep. It can be hard to sand PAST the bevels...it takes more wood off the floor than normal. And with a 2.5mm wear layer (I guess it depends on the option you choose?) you run a big risk of 'blow through' (which is when the sanding machine digs too deep and exposes underply. Regardless of the finish on top, you must have 3mm of hardwood (top layer) to get a full sand/refinish. With a deeper bevel, as I said earlier, it can be tricky. If you leave stain/finish on the bevelled edge you run the risk of adhesion failure with the new finish. Now there is the finish itself. Aluminum Oxide (AO) is notorious for being difficult to grind off. It takes most pros twice the effort (every bead of sweat has a price) and up to 3x the amount of sanding pads....that all adds up. I would 'guess' the hardwood on top ends where you see the 'light stripe' of wood is just above the penny in the photo. That looks to be enough to get a full sand/refinish AND get most of the bevels off. The AO finish is going to be your biggest barrier. A traditional sand/refinish = $5/sf. An AO finish can add as much as $2/sf. But the pro will only be able to give you an 'estimate'. Your particular floor might be easier ($1.50/sf) or it could be much harder than the pro anticipates ($3/sf). You won't know until the sanding has been completed. If you REALLY want to be able to sand/refinish a floor, make sure you work with a traditional urethane/polyurethane finish over a 4mm+ wear layer with a true microbevel. Be aware that regular urethane finishes leave homeowners rather disappointed and can lead to 'want to refinish' occurring 5 years EARLIER than anticipated (around year 7-9 versus years 12 - 15). It's up to you to decide which is more important to you. Get the floor you want TODAY at a great price (without much hope of easy refinish) OR add in more cost today so that you can be guaranteed you can achieve the floor you want tomorrow.

The new upstairs addition is a just big dormer in the shape of a rectangle that doesn’t span the entire length of the house and comes off the back. The entire upstairs has the sloped roof walls but in the area of the addition the ceiling is at normal height. The area was an attic crawl space and never had flooring. About 2/3 of the dormer is going to be a bathroom so it will be a different room and there will be a one inch step up through the door. But 1/3 of the new area that has no flooring (about 40 sq feet) will not be partitioned off from the rest of the bedroom with a door. The contractor thought about using that area as a closet but there is a window on the dormer at that location and we didn’t want to lose the natural light. So the little space will have three walls but be open to the room. We were thinking about making it into a little seating area with two chairs and a table for reading. I thought it might look ok to have carpet there if we can’t match the old pine wood.