I like the Early American, too. I thought my favorite was provincial, but they are a lot darker than I thought!

I would love to see some pictures your finished project. I have a similar dilemma. Old red oak (with amber shellac that will be sanded) toothed in with new red oak..trying to have a seamless transition is hard. Seems like we need to go with a dark stain to hide the orange undertones that come up from old wood. Duraseal Spice Brown was recommended to me but I am afraid it is too dark for my rather small and not perfectly lit space. The new wood is in the kitchen we are renovating. Cabinets will be Sherwin Williams network grey, white backsplash and light quartz countertop. I initially envisioned a light floor for our new kitchen but seems like we can’t make the new and old wood blend well unless we stain it dark.

We ended up using Duraseal Provincial water based stain. I think it blends in well with the older red oak and the newly installed red oak. The contractor did say with a lighter stain the old stain may bleed through. We did a bedroom in nutmeg to see what it looked like and I didn't like it at all. It looked more orange to me and I could see some of the pinkness from the red oak. Here's the provincial in the kitchen and other parts of the house. The pictures still look a little orangish/reddish to me. I still think they have a hint of that.

Here's provincial in the eat in kitchen room. New wood floor where the dining table is blended with the existing red oak in the kitchen.

new red oak in room to the left blended with existing red oak in the hallway

Looks great! Can I ask the dimensions of your kitchen? I think we have the exact same kitchen floor plan and I’m currently remodeling and want to put my island in that direction (vs parallel to fridge) but am worried about space for a dining table.

@Lin Mardon : your kitchen looks great. Do you have an update after these 2 years? Did the floors hold up as you had hoped? Any color changed? We're in the exact situation you were: existing red oak floors sanded, new red oak added, white cabinets and white quartz counters.

I'm leaning towards Early American but really worried about pink/red tones. Would love any thoughts.

@rubymango hi! Curious what you ended up going with for your red oak floors and how it turned out? I’m currently deciding on stain color and was leaning towards weathered oak but didn’t realize I may have an issue with the older wood still showing the orange tones if I go with a lighter color.

We ended up going with Dura seal chestnut with a satin finish. It looks stunning. I’m so pleased. I’m sorry I don’t have any photos right now to post.

@rubymango Sorry I didn't answer sooner. Our floors have held up well with the stain. Overall I am happy with them although I would have preferred the house had white oak. I feel like we have a basic brown stain although I wish it was a tad lighter. At times it can appear a bit orange or red but I think that's just what you get with red oak. I think the old floors blended in really well with the new red oak - you can't even tell old versus new. I rarely notice our floors now unless I'm looking at some trendy home decorating blog.

@Kiki M - from my original pictures I like how light the weathered oak looks but every now and then I'd see a wood plank that looked downright pink. I didn't want to risk that look. Plus the added concern that the old wood stain might show through the lighter stain.

@Lin Mardon thanks for all of the info! Wish we had white oak, too, but since we have your situation, we are also going to do DuraSeal provincial . Any lighter and I felt the floors looked a little pink, and While the darker stains took out the red they just seemed too dark for what we wanted. Glad your floors still look great!

@rubymango. I too am considering having my red oak floors stained duraseal chestnut with satin finish. Do you mind posting your result. Also, do you mind sharing if you went with a water or polyurethane seal?

Thanks!

Jessie

The lighted room looks way better in real life. I really like the satin finish.

Here’s one more. I think this is pretty representative

@rubymango These are beautiful! Thank you for sharing these!! I am leaning towards polyurethane seal.

@rubymango your floors look great!

@rubymango is the stain you used called ”english chestnut” by Duraseal ? Is it water based ?

Sorry I don’t know if it’s water based. That sounds familiar. It’s definitely duraseal and I’m pretty sure it’s chestnut (or English chestnut)

I just did a coat of Weathered oak on red oak and am worried about the few boards showing pink. I love the chestnut. My contractor uses minwax. Is the Chestnut the same on minwax? Not sure if I should have the floors sanded and redone! Haven't had poly coats done yet.

Such a helpful thread for my current situation. Duraseal has Chestnur and English Chestnut. Chestnut looks very similar to Provincial Online. Anyway thanks for this post it is helping me make my decision for red oak refinish.

Stay away from chestnut, provincial and special waklnut for red oak. You will end up with a cinnamon colored floor.

G & S Floor Service - Will Nutmeg come out orangey on Red Oak? My husband would like to go lighter and doesn't mind a golden or reddish tone as he likes the look of a cherry woodd color but I really want more of a brown. Would Medium Brown work well? I would go for Jacobean but my husband is averse to how dark it is. He would probably be happy with chestnut or provincial and a cinnamon colored floor. :-)

I would truly appreciate hearing from you as I have to give my floor guy 4 choices of stains to try out today!

I recommend pretteating with pink blocker, red out or pinkqualizer before any of your choices. Tgst will help reduce tge pink, red and orange.

G & S Floor Service: Wow that is so good to know I will ask my floor guy about that. Thank you so much!

There is a similar thread on Houzz where the OP chose a 50/50 blend of Duraseal Weathered Oak & Medium Brown. I copied the link and some pics of her finished kitchen months ago as my primary inspiration for our update. I appreciate both of these threads running from stain test patches through the finished floors. Thank you!

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5604684/has-anyone-had-success-with-a-light-brown-gray-stain-on-red-oak-floor