Decluttering before redecorating/remodeling is a good motto. Your kitchen is warm looking but all the stuff on the countertops is unappealing. I'm confused as to why decluttering is more of a challenge than renovating the kitchen, a massive expense consuming months of family time! If necessary, hire an organizer to do declutter for you--money well spent. This will give you a fresh eye to see how attractive your kitchen actually is and how to make the most of it before you spend a fortune in money and time to gut it. When you've gotten rid of duplicates of things, then consider putting in Rev-a-Shelves in some of the lower cabinets to increase functional space. Get carousels for upper cabinets. The countertops are beautiful and go well with the cabinets. Add some under cabinet lights if you don't already have them. Consider adding a backsplash of rippled subway tile in a warm cream color that harmonizes with the countertops. This will lighten the kitchen hugely along with undercabinet lighting like this kitchen with dark countertops creamy backsplash and wall color: Since you have adjoining spaces opening up near the kitchen, consider painting all the walls throughout a warm white that you pull from the background of your countertops. This will give you a feeling of flow and lightness--no need to repaint the cabinets. You have some beautiful wood floors in your house. Refinish them in a stain that goes with your cabinets so everything flows from room to room. Yes, the kitchen floor tile isn't an ideal choice with your warm cabinets. Once you declutter, get an attractive indoor-outdoor rug for now with golden tones and colors. As for gray floors, why? You have warm, golden floors elsewhere. If you're changing out the kitchen floors down the road, then find a floor tile that harmonizes with the wood floors you will have elsewhere.

OK...first thing first: What is your TOTAL BUDGET for this refresh? It sounds like you want to make ++ changes to colours/presentation but not to layout of the kitchen. The average cost of sand/refinish hardwood floors = $5/sf. Your 2000sf of wood flooring should be very close to $10K which it is. Personally I would ask if the quote is for OIL BASED finish or for the HIGH END water based products such as Bona Traffic HD or Loba 2K Supra AT. The OIL BASED turns yellow/orange. Which is what you have right now. And yes those floors need a refinish. They needed it 5 years ago. Compare that to a new hardwood floor (factory finished): Cost of material $10/sf (for the good stuff). Cost of removal of old hardwood $2/sf (includes disposal). Cost of subfloor preparation $2/sf. Cost of labour for installation $3/sf. Total costs: $17/sf. Which is more than TRIPLE the cost of a refinish. That's closer to $34,000. Hmmmmm. Now we add in the cost of new counter tops: $15K - $20K (depending on your choice). Cost of new appliances: $7K. Your kitchen refresh is already at $20K or more. Painting cabinets: another $10K or so... Here's my advice: Sand/refinish the flooring. Purchase new appliances. Move in. Leave the countertops as they are. Leave the cabinets as they are. Once the floors are finished and the appliances are replaced, you will have a fully functional home. If you sand down the red oak and have it finished (no stain) in a clear coat water based finish you can preserve the 'wheat' colour that red oak is famous for. That colour should be a nice compliment to the kitchen cabinets. Maple cabinets are a higher quality finish. The white counter tops are a beautiful compliment to maple. A crisp white is one of the best complimentary countertops for maple. I would leave them be for a year or two. You might find the kitchen needs the brightness of the counter tops. But you won't know that until you move in and start fixing meals in that kitchen.

Came across this thread and hope I can get some advice. I’m dealing with a situation like Kay L - dated engineered hardwood that is glued on the slab in the downstairs living areas. We would like to have all the downstairs flooring the same (except for bathroom). We also want new matching floor on stairs and second level, like Candri. My husband wants to diy the downstairs with floating engineered hardwood on top as he thinks this option eliminates the problem of potential moisture/mold issues from a glued EH floor or waterproof LVP (my preference). I am super hesitant to undertake this project. #1 The cost of covering up all that perfectly beautiful, albeit dated, wood. #2 Floating floors sound hollow when you walk on them. #3 Covering the tile kitchen floor with wood increases risk of water damage, which is why I would prefer LVP. (We had a busted pipe in the bathroom 11 years ago that ruined carpet and led us to installing our current floor.) We haven’t considered gluing down new EH over the existing glued down EH. I read somewhere that glue over the finished wood can cause problems. Not sure if nailing is an option since the base is concrete. There is NO WAY we will take up the current glued EH. We’ve seen YouTube videos, and trying to get up 900 sq ft of glued down EH would take forever and create more mess than I want to deal with. Any thoughts???

Thank you for all the suggestions. We are in the final stage of making our decision for our flooring finish and leaning heavily toward Rubio Monocoat "Pure." Pure would be less honey/blonde/champagne than our original inspiration and more on the amber/red side (We tried a sample of the Pure with Pink Blocker pre-treatment but the swatch unfortunately has a visible green tint.). One thing that we appreciate about the Pure finish is that, barring any "design related preferences," the red oak wood really looks beautiful with this finish on it. It brings out a depth and spark of light to the wood. There are some photos of Pure on red oak online that we like, and others we don't like so much. It is difficult to predict whether our finished floor will look more like one vs. the other. For example, we like this example of Pure on red oak from the Rubio Monocoat website: And we like this example of Pure on red oak from this website https://theflooringartists.com/projects/rubio-monocoat-pure-red-oak/ We don't like these examples of Pure on red oak as much (see below). Maybe it is the characteristics of the specific grade of wood itself, or some aspect of the application: