I am going thru the same thing right now! We already blended a bona stain and hated it so I am paying to re-sand! My contractor uses bona and duraseal ...here are some of my examples...the classic grey ( big area) is nice but looks purple sometimes...I kinda like your special walnut -classic grey combo....

Another reason not to mix custom stains. It doesn't take much to make the incorrect mix. Samples are measured with spoons, then you have to figure out the ratio for the actual project. It becomes more difficult when you need to do touch ups or spot fixes, which will most likely result in a entire floor refinish. Make things easy for yourself and stick to standard colors.

Lol -- get out of my brain! We had a hickory engineered hardwood floor very much like that in our previous home (see pic) and I loved it too. This was our previous home: But I hope you're just leaning toward mid-brown rather than attempting to get too close to the pic you posted, since it features hickory vs. red oak, it's wide plank, it's hand-scraped, etc. Now, both of us are dealing with a very different beast. No matter what color stain you choose, it's going to have a red cast unless you go very dark or take extra measures to reduce the red. There's a two-step product called Bona Red Out that can be applied to the raw wood after sanding, and it will neutralize a lot of the red and pink. You can also select a stain that has some green in it, since green is red's opposite on the color wheel. Since you like Jacobean, you could try mixing it with Duraseal Silvered Gray (a light color), and with Rustic Beige (a little darker), and with Provincial (darker, but still with a cool/ashy undertone).

Hi @chrissysue52 I ended up using Country White + Fruitwood, 50/50 mix. Or rather that's the colors I gave to the contractors to do the floors. They definitely look different, although everyone's eye and taste will differ. Photos show the difference between regular red oak nonstained, and the stained. Left is the start of the stain. The team had to stop this area because they found water damage elsewhere in the house. You can see how it looks when it starts. This is different than my samples looked, but I guess it's right? The stairs on the left are stained and have two coats of water poly. The floor on the right is still just red oak no stain.