The only standards in floor refinishing are those suggested by the manufacturer of the finishes themselves. Once the products are out in the field, finishers take these materials and incorporate them into what they do as artisans. We all have techniques we develop and use in our work and I guess your crusty old guy has techniques he's developed to produce a 'product' and a service that he offers. The finish schedule proposed for the maple certainly will give enough build to look good and provide protection and serviceability. Your guy has obviously substituted Mega for the sealers and stains designed for Traffic, but I won't say that there is anything wrong with that practice. I have developed techniques of my own that are 'off the pages' too. Your guy wouldn't be doing what he does for economic reasons; the material costs are the same. And, he wouldn't be doing what he does if the technique didn't produce excellent results...wouldn't make a lick of sense. Good luck.

Our floor guy used Minwax, and they do indeed have a yellow-ish color named Natural. He stained samples of Natural, Cherry, and multiple layers of Cherry (or maybe we tried Gunstock? I can't remember) on the sanded floor for us and let us choose. Then he sanded that area again and stained with Cherry. I would ask the companies who quoted if that might be a possibility for you. It was really helpful to see the colors in place with our own lighting. Looking at Minwax's colors, I would try Special Walnut and Early American. Everyone absolutely loves our Cherry floors (it's a bright, warm, medium shade, not anything like the dark reddish furniture you see sometimes), so that might be an option too. I don't think it reads orange or yellow. Here is a link that might be useful: Minwax This post was edited by hoffmalr on Mon, Apr 1, 13 at 18:13

You might want to read this valuable advice from SJ McCarthy written earlier today. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5806177/difference-between-white-oak-and-red-oak-flooring SJ McCarthy The ORANGE you are seeing is the finish. The oil based polyurethanes are products that turn WHITE PAPER orange. It is called ambering. The red oak floors in the photo have been finished with an oil based finish. This is common practice but not currently attractive in today's 'white is best' flooring fashion. The issue I have with redoing the floors is this: The floors will loose 20 years of life if you sand/refinish them today. How do I know this? Because a site finished floor is supposed to offer 25 years of 'life'. A solid 3/4" hardwood (which I'm guessing this is) will offer 60 - 80 years of service (that's 3 sand/refinishes during it's lifetime). Each time you 'change' the colour (on a whim or due to current fashion) you cut down the life of your 'lifetime' floor. If you do this 3 times in 20 years (today, 10 years from now and then 20 years from now) you will have cut the life of your floor down to 40 years. That's half of it's natural life span. Balance deleted

Too many samples here.. And whatever you choose will change based on location, lighting, surrounding colors, etc, and that will vary throughout your home. I also like using a stain without a custom mix. If you have to re-do a small section later, there's no problem matching. Choose something you like and don't stress about how it appears in one particular spot; the overall effect is far more important. FWIW, we redid our red oak floors using weathered oak and couldn't be happier. We were looking for something that added a little grey but still looked natural, and it does exactly that. Good luck!