@katiejeane i am glad i came across your post of red oak flooring. i have been trying for months to get the color right and love your home and floor. I have some questions and hope you dont mind me asking. do you get a lot of natural light? What sun exposure do you have? id love to see the floor up close to see the background color and grain. would you mind posting a picture? what poly did you apply and what finish: extra matte or satin? hoping you did not water pop or pretreat the floor to get the red out since we are not doing those things. you still love it and have no regrets? i have tried every combination that i have resorted to non-mixed colors of special walnut, and provincial, and mixed of medium brown/rustic, chestnut/rustic and going to try your mix of medium brown/weathered. what were your runner ups. So afraid to pick wrong again (first pick i selected weathered oak and what a distaster - way to pink on red oak). yoir guidance and insight are welcome. looking to put this part of the project behind me.

There should be no orange once it's sanded properly.

Go to a flooring store and talk to them about their finishing options for red oak. If you find one you like, pay them a consult fee to provide you with the products and method to achieve it. Also get a quote on having them do the work. You'll be in a reasonably strong position to get what you want for the long-term. That's what's important. Present all the info to your builder. He can run the info by his flooring guy. Maybe it'll work out. You have a chance of success if you're proactive.

I like the color you have! It is classic. Maybe not "on trend", but it won't be the gray floor of 2017 for the next 40 years either. Anything "Medium Brown" will be classic. Achieving that on red oak is not always easy due to the red part of red oak. Seriously, though, there is no easy answer to this without samples on your floor in your lighting. You can't make your decision based on pictures on the internet because of the variations in lighting and whatever your monitor does to colors, too. If you can't slow the process down to get samples, I would make my own samples by getting some unfinished red oak and staining it yourself. Be sure to add the top coat to get a realistic idea of what it will look like. Then you can move the samples around. However, you need to know what brand of products your flooring professional is going to use. If you have that information already, please share it and the professionals here will be able to give you some input on the quality of the product.