You are like a lot of people shopping for hardwood. I was the district mgr for Bruce Hardwood. You are getting bad advice. Your reasons for wanting a solid is based on inaccurate info. That was what I meant. The first link provided to you is an out of state hardwood company. They of course will sell you anything you order but won't stand behind it. At least the other company is Florida based. Its just important for you to understand the difference and all engineered is not the same. Suggest you search this forum for Advice from a Hardwood rep for those shopping. I wrote that several yrs ago. You need to get better information. There are valid reasons for wanting a solid but you should also understand why your local dealers are advising against it. Sorry if I sounded harsh.

You have Red Oak. Plain sawn. As far as the stains, i learned a long time ago not to say if something can or cannot be sanded out. ive seen stains i was for sure were not going to come out, came out, and likewise ive seen stains i thought would and just would not clean up. That black spot is suspicious. it may not come out, but i would definitely rip off the old finish and then see how the spots clean up if at all. The nice thing about 2.25 red oak, is its very common to find that particular wood at home depot, at least in my area, so if you are trying to do this 100%DIY then you're in luck, if you choose to hire this job out, its not a difficult wood to find at all! Good luck!

The house is 100 years old which means the floors might be the same age. It is entirely possible that the wood has had its day. A wood floor can only be sanded/refinished so many times and then it is finished. It needs to be replaced. Before you decide on 'other' flooring for the house, PLEASE find out if there is enough wood on the EXISTING floor to get another sand/refinish. To do this, you simply need to find a cross section of the wood. This is often found around floor registers or at the floor's edge (in front of a door, or at a step, some place where you see a transition strip). Find a spot to look at the cross section and then MEASURE the amount of wood sitting ABOVE the tongue. You need a minimum of 3mm of wood to achieve a sand and refinish. The other thing I would like to point out is the wood is in rough shape...but the finish (just from the glow in the pics) looks OK. I'm wondering if the previous owners did a 'buff and coat' (adding a layer of finish rather than having a full sand and refinish). This might be because of resale or it might be because there isn't enough wood left to achieve a full sand and refinish. And is this part of the home and addition? If it is, then the age of the floor/addition might be to your advantage.

Time to choose stain samples. The upstairs has four different types of wood, so that’s fun. We’re thinking Early American for the downstairs office to try to match the current pine floors (photo 1). Anyone prefer Special Walnut, Provincial or 50 Provincial / 50 Neutral? Upstairs, 3 of the bedrooms have a very red (cherry?) wood so early American didn’t look very good (photo 4). The other bedroom has a mix of woods (photo 3) and the stairs are red oak (no pic). We’ve been advised that a darker stain might work better given everything going on so we’ve been looking at either Provincial, 50 Provincial / 50 Neutral, or 33 Jacobean / 33 Provincial / 33 Neutral. Anyone have a preference between those three? Using water based poly in Satin finish.