I have decided to try again and refinish the floors in a few years after I add new flooring to the main level of my house. So I am going to try to mix a one-coat stain for the stair treads. I'll try minwax red oak and espresso first. I might buy a dark walnut or other dark color stain if that doesn't work. When I refinish, I will probably build new flush-mount vent registers and toss the ones I have. They are not that well made nor structurally strong, especially at the intake. (I keep stepping on the edge of the vent register in front of the patio door and I'm afraid I will break it.) But I will keep the registers I have until I redo the floor. I think I need to frame out the vent openings with mitered floor planks and run the register slats across the shorter dimension. Two more immediate concerns: (1) Stair Tread Project: The varathane water poly on the wood floor is being scratched from the dogs' nails. The scratches are white-ish. I have been letting the dogs play and I need to do a better job trimming the puppy's nails. However I do not want to deal with scratched poly on the stair treads that I will be installing soon. Do the scratches come out when you sand-screen and apply a new coat of poly as maintenance? Or should I use a power buffer? What tool would you recommend? I prefer not to remove the white painted side trim when I refinish the stair treads every couple of years (as necessary) because it will be thin and will probably have to be replaced (and it will be hard and time consuming to cut new trim pieces). (2) Fireplace Project: I will be re-tiling the fireplace hearth this year. The hearth is framed by wood flooring that I just refinished, and will refinish again. I purchased carrera marble tiles, about 3/8" thick. The marble hearth will be flush with the wood floor. How should I tile this so that the marble is protected when I refinish the wood floor again in the future? I don't want metal edging between the tile and the wood. I sealed the inside edge of the wood floor that surrounds the hearth with poly already, and I won't be changing the color of the wood floor significantly.

A picture would be great. I don't know if you have wood floors in other rooms but they should all match. Ideally you'll want some contrast between the cabinets and floors, so if a natural finish makes the floors too close to the cabinets you might want to consider a stain.

If you like your current colour then go ahead and put down a new version of it. If you want something different then I would go lighter. I love the look of red oak in the 'buff'. It is a pretty wheat/sand coloured wood. So long as you work with a high-end water based polyurethane that does NOT yellow, you will have a very pretty 'pale wood' floor without much effort. Your existing finish appears to be oil based (or oil modified) which makes the floor yellow. The strong gold tones in your wood right now = the finish. Did your refinisher apply a coat of FINISH over your colour samples? If they did NOT....then you are picking BLIND. And I mean screaming and crying and tearing your hair because your beautiful gray floors turned to a muddy orange mess. Not good. Do you see the pale colour of the raw wood? You can keep that colour (very close to it) with 3 coats of water based polyurethane like Bona Traffic HD. Keep the gloss level a snick on the low side (satin is a nice low-gloss option) and you keep that pretty 'swedish blonde' look.

@jjam Your floors look beautiful. @Angela Wacker I hope your floors turn out beautiful. @mdln these are such a good ideas/solutions next time I am doing a renovation I will make sure to get this kit. I went by the house in the morning and took a closeup photo (prior to getting confirmation from the contractor and subcontractor) It does look like white oak. @SJ McCarthy thank you for all the information, it gave me ideas on what to ask the contractor and how to have a conversation about the floors. I even came up with a few more stains to try in case the original choices did not work out. The contractor e-mailed me early this afternoon agreeing to test a few more colors. We asked him, again, regarding the type of floors we have and the new ones they installed, initially he said the floors were red oak, but then he texted us an hour later letting us know that the sub had informed him that it was white oak!?! What!! @Beth Thank you!!!! @SashaDog Thank you!!!! @G & S Floor Service @Timothy Winzell it appears you guys were right - it is white oak -probably. Quality/grade? who knows! I cant believe the contractor did not know this! It appears my worries about the floors looking red after a light stain were unnecessary. We stopped by the home to see the samples on our "white oak" and the white stain looked nice with the top coat on it, not pink. The birch was nice, but we decided to go with the white as it looks more like the natural color of the wood we love. I am still anxious about the overall outcome, but crossing fingers that it turns out nice. I am going by the house tomorrow and working from my car so I can take a look and stop the workers in their tracks if it looks bad lol. I am just kidding...but maybe I am not :) Here are the two samples we tried Bona Birch and Duraseal White with bona HD on our "white oak" floors (this is not 100% for sure lol). Leaving the picture here in case someone is looking for a picture of these two stains. You are all such a wonderful group of people! Thank you for helping me through my anxiety. This morning I felt so stupid to have been worrying about a floor stain when so much more important things are going on in the world. Anyways, thank you and much love to you all. Stay healthy!! -Mari