Don't get discouraged! The floors look beautiful. It may simply be a matter of getting the room(s) furnished and the right lighting. Try switching out whatever lighting you can to 4000K LED - it's the closest to natural daylight. The wall colour may also come into play if you are still not happy.

Thanks. Actually we do have them already set at 4000K in the kitchen and 3500 in the living room. They look so different than I expected. What wall colors would you recommend? The whole house is getting painted next week and I am trying to make those decisions now. Would it be crazy to redo? Logistically it’s not really a big deal we have very little furniture and family to stay with for a few days. I hate to pay more money but also don’t know if I’ll continue to obsess over them. Is it better to wait and live there for a while. Ugh this whole experience has been really stressful (we are also doing some minor remodeling with walls, etc).

These floors are very handsome and classic in presentation. The won't date easily.

Question: Did the refinisher use oil based finish or water based finish? Oil based turns amber/orange. If this is oil based (or oil modified) the floors will get STRONGER in colour. They will turn more orange than they already are. This may not be look you were after.

He used oil based - we have two little kids and he said they would be stronger and scratch less easily (and have a richer color which at the time I thought we did want). But orange is not what I want. If we redid what color would you recommend to get the feel of old growth black walnut (if that is even possible?) Also if we keep what wall colors will tone down the orange? These were more the looks we were going for (I realize our cabinets are an issue currently).

To tone down the red in red oak you need green. Jacobean is a green-based brown. It is used as an additive to another stain to keep things from turning too orange/red.

Your refinisher is not up to date on the HIGH END 2K polyurethanes on the market. Which means s/he probably cannot handle the 'trickiness' of Bona Traffic HD (the HD is the important part...don't get swindled by someone saying 'I use Bona all the time' only to get the low end Mega). A slightly easier (ahem...only slightly) to use product is Loba 2K Supra AT (again, the AT is the important part...see above). Loba is harder to FIND. It is a stunning product that is not as common as Bona.

These water based finishes are CLEAR (NO AMBERING) and are TOUGHER than oil based. They are expensive. They can/will add $1.50/sf onto the cost of refinishing. Be prepared for that.

You SAVE on the 'time' it takes for these to fully cure. Bona Traffic HD = 5 days (yes...5) and Loba 2K Supra AT = 7. On top of the very short cure rate = NO ODOUR!

Your refinisher did a beautiful job. The floors are very beautiful. If you want to change them I suggest you pay him/her in full (I'm assuming you already have), shake hands, offer a lovely reference and then walk away. You will want to find someone who knows their way around a 2 part water based polyurethane. So long as the person has had Bona training (or has been trained by someone who has) then you will be just fine.

And make sure you contract says, "Bona Traffic HD - 3 Coats".

I don’t have any suggestions but I think your floors are beautiful!

Thanks everyone for the helpful feedback! I agree he did an excellent job and was very kind to work with. We certainly have paid him and will refer, but I agree he was fairly traditional and perhaps not up on latest things. I will have to take all this into consideration and go from there!

IMO, oil poly is still the best bang for the buck. While waterborne finishes have improved, I still see better scratch and wear resistance from oil poly. It's similar to oil paint, which many people here still use to paint doors and trim due to its superior durability. When you factor in that Bona Traffic wholesale is about $100 more per gallon, oil poly seems an even better deal. Ambering is more of an issue for lighter colors.

Using the same stain and waterborne urethane might be somewhat less amber, but not significantly. In a residential setting, where someone cares how their floors look and maintains them, the top coat will be scuffed and worn and require a recoat well before the two coats wear through to the stain or the wood.

One suggestion would be to have the finisher make a sample using the same stain on water popped wood. This will make the harder grain soak in more stain so it's closer to the color of your darker grain. This makes the floor the darker overall and more uniform but it does require an third coat of finish to counteract/cover the texture caused by water popping.

Unless you're water popping there's little reason to use three coats of finish as long as the finish is applied at the prescribed rate.

Thank you Johnson Flooring Co. He said the same thing about the ambering and lighter colors and that this would be okay with our stain. He did use 3 coats, did not water pop. I think the biggest mistake is we mixed in the English Chesnut thinking it would just add a bit of warmth, when in reality it turned much more orange than I anticipated. Maybe once we are there and can see it in all different lights it will be okay but I also realize it would be much easier to redo now than later. I do hate to “waste” a refinish on the wood. He said these floors could be done many more times though and be fine.

Besides taking advantage of having your areas already cleared, another point in favor of doing it now is that the recently sanded floor is flat enough to allow less aggressive sanding to get back down to raw wood and that going darker means he doesn't have to worry about going deep enough to eliminate dark grain.

I'd be really torn if I had to make that decision for myself.

Thanks again for your input. I’m not even sure we want to go darker, but just less orange. Would special walnut be a good choice?

The floors look great to me

Thank you Marta. I appreciate everyone’s comments who think they look great. That is helping to give me some perspective.