Light to medium brown floors are timeless and work with anything (see picture #3 above).

Some do not like how much cleaning dark floors require.

Gray floors will be limiting in the long run. They have been popular, but apparently are trending out.

PS. Edited to add: Don't get flooring in your forever home to "match" your current furniture. That will box you in forever. Or force you to re-do your forever home when you decide you want/need different furniture.

Agree medium to light floors

Same tone/colour as pic. 3. Dark floors show every speck, not fun to maintain, grey will be dated.

Do White Oak floors. Forget going w/gray. Your grays will always work w/natural white oak floors, even if they're stained a darker color. but w/gray stained floors, you're stuck with those.

these are stain on site 2 3/4" Red Oak (and if you're going to go for a darker stain, no sense spending more for the white oak floors. do the red oak if going dark

lighter? do the white oak

If you like the wider plank, get the French Oak style

here's a close up of mine. they have a tiny bit of gray to it, but it's more of a natural color (this brand comes in over 10 diff stain colors)

Thank you all for the comments and help!

Do a medium wood color as that will always be timeless. Very dark shows all the dirt and too light does too. Gray is dated already.

@Beth H. : what do you think of putting barstools like you have in our kitchen photo #1 at the end of the counter? Problem is the counter doesn't extend/hang but we'd like to have some seating. The builder won't make the counter longer unfortunately. Alternately was thinking of getting rid of some cabinets in the island so we could put chairs underneath.

Beth - mind sharing the brand and color of your floors? Thanks

If there is no over hang at the island there will be no one seated there. If you want seating, you must have an over hang. I prefer to see a 12" over hang. To do that the slab must be supported properly. Make sure your builder gets that part right.

Many people think the seating will be well used, but many many homeowners find the bar stools rarely get used. You will want to ask yourself what is MORE important: Storage or seats that are not used.

I'll take storage every time. But that's just me.

hard to sit w/your knees pressed up against the panel! you should have a minimum of 10". 12-14 is better.

what do you mean the builder won't do an overhang? they won't do a simple overhang off the end closest to the dining table?

we never sit at the dining table. never. we eat at the island.

You could wait until after you move in and do it yourselves. builders charge so much for simple granite upgrades, it's ridiculous. (and their choices are usually low end quality that they charge a premium) I always tell people to get whatever is standard, move in, and then get what you want.

marin_neve Calif. Classics, Mediterranean-Granville.

I previously had light , had to replace because of a water issue, replaced with medium walnut. The walnut is beautiful but MUCH harder to maintain than my previous light floors. It shows every crumb, water spot , etc.

I LOVE gray (my husband jokes that I would buy all gray furniture, linens, clothing, etc if I could) but honestly would avoid it for wood floors. I feel like wood should have some warmth to it and gray just doesn't bring out the natural beauty of wood in the same way that brown tones do. My favorite flooring would be a medium-dark wood floor with cool/neutral undertones, like those shown in the first two photos.

Keep in mind that darker floors are more challenging to keep flawless and show dirt and imperfections more easily than do medium-light wood floors. I also feel like super dark floors, while beautiful, are a bit trendy and I'm unsure how we'll feel about them in another 10-20 years. I personally dislike floors with lots of yellow, orange, and red tones and feel like that makes floors look dated. For longevity. timelessness, and ease of maintenance, I think a medium-light wood with neutral undertones is the way to go!

Thanks for advice I think we are going with maple and fingers crossed comes out nice!