I would surely want somebody to look at the thickness of the current boards, so I knew how many more refinishings they had in them. also, would depend a bit on how perfect the rest of the kitchen is -- i.e., might you be tempted to make changes in a few years, and could save the floor work for that time.

@acm Thanks, I hadn't thought about the thickness of the current boards! They are 3/4" solid and about 40 yrs old so I think they are probably okay but it's definitely something to think about. I considered waiting till I redo the kitchen but (1) I'm unlikely to change the layout bc of budget, and (2) the flooring guy has already ordered the wood. I think he might be pretty upset with me if I cancelled completely.

If you ordered the new in unfinished : to be finished on site I don’t see the difficulty of a finisher getting it to match your existing. They usually put a few test colors right on the area after they show some samples....so you can see how close or maybe change the shading a bit you care to go. I’m not certain why you are being given the narrative you describe.

Thank you all for your responses. This person was recommended by two people I highly trust (one contractor friend, and recent clients of his). I don't know enough about hardwoods to know. When we made the plan I had no idea they had been refinished so recently. It does seem like overkill to refinish them. I wonder if the header would look weird as it's more within a room than between rooms at this point (pics attached). But I think it might be the way to go, and then maybe the next time I refinish I could have them lace the two floors together. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the actual line in the floor, but these are the two spaces I am trying to bring together. The kitchen is like a U with a peninsula shared by the living room (this was the wall prior owners took down):

You will always see the transition. Only you know if that will bother you. He is setting up realistic expectations for you. Changing the direction will fool the eye a bit to help conceal color variation but the only way to guarantee a match is full refinish.

Thanks. I am fixing it up upon move in and hoping to refinance in a few years. If anyone has a sense of how this will impact the value of the home, I'm all ears! It's only $1000 so if it will make a real difference to the feel, I don't want to mess it up.

You will never refinish the floors again. Do it now or decide it’s fine to never do it.

Refinish everything, start with a blank canvas and customize it to your style.

If you like the current color I recommend adding to it and using an flush divider, which we generally call a header. One advantage of this (besides costing less, being less disruptive and causing less consequential damages) is that in the future the kitchen could be recoated up to the header. Your kitchen will get several times more wear than most areas of the house and will require recoating more frequently. It's often a challenge finding a place to stop the coat that doesn't show a stop-line, meaning that we often have to recoat more area than necessary.

If you were more interested in making it perfect rather than acceptable, I would recommend paying the floor guy for the wood he bought, wait until you're ready for a kitchen renovation, lace the wood in at that time and refinish everything. They may not be willing to store the wood so you might need to find a conditioned space to store it. This strategy would also protect you if something on the new kitchen varies slightly from the existing.

Would love to see the final result! I would shy away from a transition piece unless there’s an actual threshold.

I would also love to see what you ended up doing. I know this is an old post, but hopefully she comes back with an update. I will be facing similar dilemma soon now that we decided to extend our hardwood into kitchen. Last time it was sanded/refinished was 16 years ago. We really don’t want to have to sand and refinish all of the floors that will meet with the new kitchen floor. I think we would be ok if the color didn’t match perfectly. Meeting with hardwood companies next week to see what they suggest.

@lynn we’re also about to merge some old wood flooring with some new wood flooring. We’re going to sand all the old wood floors except for the bedrooms. We would love to do all of them but moving all the bedroom stuff just felt too overwhelming.

@Hannah Baer I hear you about moving all of the furniture being overwhelming! Our kitchen meets our dining room and family room. Don't really feel like emptying my two china/crystal cabinets or moving our huge leather sectional. Everything from our kitchen will be in tubs in various rooms on our first floor, so there would be no room for moving dining room and family room furniture to do those floors. I went back and forth for weeks deciding between tile and hardwood for the kitchen. It may end up being easier to do tile in the kitchen lol! Good luck with your project!