I like the sample on the far left on the floor.

If your brick mortar is light gray as in the top photo of brick, 4 options of thought....you need the gray finish wood(cause the black looked pretty nice with it?)but a silver gray barnwood color, like ashes... If not that, than you need to get something as close to terra cotta as you can in a stain..thinking like your brick is ....a dusty terracotta clay pot. Your photo of enlarged stain trials is of such poor quality, it is illegible really. ON someone's iphone it might be clearer than on a desktop large screen. OR, seeing the boards and the stain samples, if those are boards that are the actual current now, wood floor, don't stain them at all, just have them sealed and go on with life. You cannot go wrong with unstained wood, in nature wood matches everything, and it will be very pretty with the brick I think.. Now the last option is a bit unique, but have you looked at deck paint? Deck paint on wood floors comes in many different shades now and is durable for a sitting area such as yours. Using a soft golden tone of deck paint, would be lovely with your brick. As would a dark red, or a dusty terra cotta red, and even a medium gray, but I think the golden tone would be better than the gray perhaps. Good luck. Nice friendly, & welcoming room you have!!

First things first. What wood are you going to use. Every wood species takes stain differently. Second, Beth's got great expertise and advice on woods and stains. I agree also on not using MinWax stain. I also think you would do well selecting one "floor" tone for throughout the home. It makes things more cohesive and generally speaking medium to lighter stains are best. I love natural wood looks, but they tend to go best in more contemporary settings, which you stated you don't want. I would avoid golds and red tones. Not as timeless as walnuts and more brown tones. Bona-Medium Brown is nice neutral shade and could be great with all your brick and other elements. I would try that on a sample board from the wood you select. Start with leaving stain on only 30 seconds and wiping off, repeat this until you get a tone you like. Write down each step and how much time you left the stain on before you wiped it off. Very important in order to duplicate the technique. White oak would be my choice of wood species for your home.

Thank you everyone for the responses! I have attempted to respond 2x so far and it isn't showing up...I'll write a shorter response and then reload the computer to see if that is the issue.

To answer your questions (quickly): I apologize about the sample quality. I posted the photo to show the shape of room and give you an idea of what we are working with at the moment (obviously, still working on it). I didn't even think that maybe you guys would zoom in on the pictures! I will put a higher quality one. I"m sorry they were so horrible/terrible.

Thank you for the suggestion to use Duraseal/Bona. I had wondered if that was a better option but hadn't started researching. I was playing around with the minwax that I had at the house. I will def look into the Duraseal provincial. I think it's more like the color I imagine in my head. My only concern is that it would be too dark but that's what samples are for!

The floors will be pine. We aren't in the position to get other wood right now, so we are going to deal with the yellowy color but it's the best we can do. fortunately, pine was common in farmhouses around here, so we aren't too far off base (I don't think so, anyway...)

I am going to re-read everything and get back with more answers. I'll find a better quality sample pic. Sorry again - I didn't realize that you were looking at them!

No need to apologize. It's a fact that the larger you make a small photo, the more distortion and than on the screen conversion tooooo. Seems like you got some great ideas!! Pretty sweet!!

thank you, everyone! I am going to try and find some Duraseal around here - only one flooring place in the area carries it according to the website, so I hope they are open! I"m going to check out the provincial bc I do love that color. I"ll see if I can find some Bona in the medium brown, as suggested.

As mentioned, We are going to sample on pine and the floor will be pine. I know there's a yellow-ness that comes with it but it's the best fit for us at the moment. At some point, when we get things more livable here, we are going to redo all the floors to match this back room, so I want to pick a nice warm color that will go throughout the house. Right now, it's a bit of a carnival of colors in here. 3" oak on one floor with a golden oak (we think) stain, ugly brown tile in kitchen, wide-planked pine in another room (with warm reddish brown) in another....and that's just the downstairs. It's going slowly but we will have everything a bit more uniform soon (I hope).

Thank you for the color suggestions - I'll snap a new pic today of the samples. the only ones I could find are dark/blurry so for the purposes of looking at the samples we did, they would be similar to the others. I'll update soon..thank you!