Your house is very pretty! I personally like darker wood floors especially with white trim. I have red oak also, and used "Provincial" minwax stain which is a little dark but not so dark that every blonde hair would stand out. It has a satin stain. I'll try to post a pic - not real experienced with that. On the kitchen forum there are alot of threads showing wood flooring with white trim (or cabinets) I think darker flooring looks more elegant, while lighter (natural stain) looks more country. Your house fits the elegant catagory! the pics look a little different because of the lighting. There was no flash used for the first pic

Hi. What you need is a finishing specialist and to go through the mock-up process. I am not an expert, but achieving deep colors in wood may mean more that just applying additional coats of stain out of the can. Often the deepest colors are achieved through first dyeing the wood, then applying stain over it. This is definitely a trial and error process if you are matching something you've seen in a photo. If you want to tackle this yourself (that's a big undertaking in terms of knowledge and practical skills to acquire), there is an excellent book on Amazon entitled "UNDERSTANDING WOOD FINISHING by BOB FLEXNER". My suggestion is to find someone who is in fact an expert in wood finishing. If your floor installer has never applied more than a single coat of stain to a floor, their breadth of experience may not be sufficient to give you the product you want. I would not touch that floor again until you are able to have a sample created with which you are 100% happy. This probably means having your installer generate multiple samples right through from sanding, coloring & final finish. They will need to keep a record of the samples to clearly keep track of individual colors used, # of coats, type of sheen (for clear coat), etc. They should not proceed until you sign-off on a control sample. Have them cut it in half and keep one in your possession, and your installer/finisher should keep the other for reference during the finishing process. It is much cheaper and ultimately can save time and prevent mistakes to perform your experiments on small pieces rather than an entire floor. Good luck!

i like the ebony or the 50/50 ebony/gray with your tile and granite since it has a cooler tone. one question is, do you plan to have a smooth glossy top coat? with darker color floors, that can sometimes show a lot of dirt, thus be a bit more high maintenance. we had dark glossy floors with a small dog in our previous home and all of his paw prints and dust could be seen everywhere. in our current house, the floors are matte finish and it shows nothing even though my cleaning skills have not improved, lol.

It looks like the floors have been stained/finished to match the cabinets. If you must refinish them (and I would ONLY do this if they ABSOLUTELY need it) I would work with a water based polyurethane. Just as dcarendt has done, going NATURAL with a water based finish will offer a degree of separation which would be JUST ENOUGH to offer some visual interest. Personally I think the COUNTER TOPS need changing more than the floors. My first choice would be a CRISP white (no gray) or a soap stone/slate counter top would be EXTREMELY handsome. You need some CONTRAST in the kitchen. Right now you have mid-tone sitting on mid-tone sitting on mid-tone. You have the lightest version of "brown blahs" I have yet encountered. Changing the counter tops would be faster and probably cheaper than changing the finish of the wood.