I now have in front of me two samples of stain over white oak. One dark, one medium shade. Coincidentally, Linen white is my wall color too. I agree that the dark stain may show imperfections. Kitchen cabs are off-white for me. I'm leaning towards the medium shade more that the darker shade. Contrast will be fine even with the medium stain against the white or off-white cabs. Sounds like you and I are thinking alike- dark sounds luxurious but a pain to deal with daily. If you need, I'll try to get a photo of the two samples my flooring guy has delivered. Chestnut would be what I'd call the lighter shade.

We have quartersawn white oak floors that have no stain and just an aluminum oxide finish for protection...they were pre-finished in a very matte finish we specified to be put on at the mill. The quarter sawing changes the appearance of the grain so they may look a little different from yours unless yours are also quartersawn? We love the color and though they do scratch a little (we have two VERY active larger dogs, a Border Collie and and English Shepherd)the lighter color hides the scratches so far and doesn't show a lot of dirt. Night shot with flash Daylight with no flash Good luck! Kat :)

PF offered to come buff and put another coat, but we objected it since all 4 coats were put within 6.5 hours and we are not sure that previous coats are good. PF also offered to do full refinish but we don't have confidence that PF can do a good job this time. PF himself does not guarantee that second time the finish will work because as he says we do not have perfect humidity conditions. PF says all his employees are certified and did everything within the Bona's guideline. I don't know how 4 coats in 6.5 hours is within Bona's guideline but he is a type of a person that can claim that yogurt is black. The inspector made a mistake and told us that only one person was certified from PF. After we told PF that we talked to female inspector and she said that from our description it looks like PF was at fault, PF tracked down the inspector (we did not disclose inspector's name to PF), called her to correct her that all his employees are certified. In addition PF threatened the inspector to take her to NFWA ethics boards and told her how much money he makes a year and that she should be careful. PF told the inspector that she cannot work for us since he hired her once and that would be a conflict of interest since the inspector has a dislike for him. He is willing to pay $1400 for the damages and walk away if we sign NDA. I told him $1400 would not even cover our accommodation and moving and storage fees of our belongings that we are incurring because of him plus we have to sign a NDA that will free him from any future responsibly of his subfloor and floor install work. We contacted PF and told that it was wrong to track down the inspector and threaten her. PF denied that he threatened the inspector and only called her to correct that all his employees are certified. Also PF tried multiple times to convince us to hire an inspector of his choice for $500. We said we want an independent inspector. He says the inspector we found is a rip off as their fee is $2800.

First off, ask the contractor to sand it to smooth. I would chose the country white since you want it to appear lighter and brighter. It would help if you could show us some photos and we could get a better idea of the layout.