Can you take one or two clear digital photos and post it? With an oil based finish or sealer (and not stained), red oak is generally amber to orange-reddish in tone, whereas white oak is more tan to golden brown. With a water based finish, both species will be much lighter or whitish, but the basic color tones will still be there. Red oak generally has a thicker or wider earlywood cell layer (the rings you see), whereas the white oak earlywood layer is usually very narrow in width. This is most easily visible on the end of a board or with rift and quartered. When looking down on flatsawn flooring, both species rings can appear wide. White oak has rays (the cells that are perpendicular to the rings) that are longer (1-2 inches) and are very noticeable as wide ray fleck in 90 degree quartered material. Red oak rays are short (1/2" - 1" long), but can be easily seen due to the lighter colored wheat or amber red oak wood and the generally wider annual growth rings. This flooring company has some good pictures of both red and white oak with an oil based finsih: Here is a link that might be useful: Launstein oak pictures

Can you post a photo? I’m going through a similar dilemma and I’d love to see your floors. Our living room is white oak and the dining room and hallway red oak. We love the pale color of the living room and are trying to keep them all light. Houzz has made a few recommendations but we have not yet pulled the trigger. I still feel like I need more counsel.

We went with natural red oak - we love the lighter flooring throughout our home - and a contrasting stained white oak cabinet (I think it’s with special walnut). Contrast is more restrained in person and cabs are darker than we envisioned - originally we were thinking less contrast - but we’re very happy with how it turned out! We also have a good amount of white in the kitchen.

Thanks! We do have a true flooring professional doing the floors, not a general contractor. He feels bad that he mis-identified the wood in the kitchen, but it was in such poor shape that it was hard to tell, apparently. He mentioned that he could bleach the wood and try to get it to match better but I was just wondering if that is a futile effort. I didn't want to leave the floors unmatched in their natural state b/c it would look like a mistake for SURE, but wondering if there are any design professionals out there who have confronted this issue and done something like intentionally staining the kitchen a different darker color so it looks intentional. Or alternatively if anyone has successfully remedied this situation with bleach & a stain to where it actually looks ok. Maybe a picture would be helpful but I can't get in there right now as they are sanding the floors and it's all sealed off!! P.S. Replacing the Red Oak with White Oak is a great long term solution but short term, we don't have the $$ to do that!