We just had our floors refinished (to get rid of the old, very worn, butterscotch look) so I understand your challenge. i wanted a warm medium-brown that wasn't orange-y. The look I was aiming for is the larger photo when you scroll down in the link below, which reads "This is more what our floors look like today" or something similar. Studying the photo I decided I wanted to highlight the grain but to also allow the individual colors of the boards to show through. I liked the life in this floor. It took me a while to realize that I was looking for a less opaque stain (hence the natural). I have NO idea what stains were used on the floor in the photo (and cannot give credit since I don't know the origin of the photo), but I feel we achieved something really close using a mix of 1 provincial: 1 jacobean : 2 natural. This was on red oak, using a different brand of stain (Bona), with solvent-based Swedish finish over it. I think using 2 parts natural allow the red tint of the red oak to show on some boards, which makes it warm. I am crazy about our new floors. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: similar look to our floors

I had the exact same issue. Initially they thought they could do it. But my house is old and when they did the demo they said the way they did the spacing of the supports under the wood on the older section cannot be duplicated today and the floor would never look even and the old section would always be a little higher and "squeaky". Ended up doing the whole floor. However, the hallways are old hardwood as well and the transition (via a doorway) seems fine.

I live in New York City and this is a 120 year old brownstone and we left the original hardwood floors intact and just refinished them except for where we removed a wall between kitchen and dining room (and added three strips of wood where the wall had been - the island is installed in the middle of where the wall used to be - and we also installed about 10 partial strips of wood where we removed a dumbwaiter and some ducting to make the kitchen about 25" deeper which is where we placed the fridge. here is a pic for context - there has definitely not been temperature control since installation - being an old house, it can get pretty cold in the winter and pretty hot in the warmer weather - we don't have central air, but do have centralized heating via boiler ( and thermostat placed on the parlor floor where the new kitchen is) As for whether these are carpenter ants, I googled big black ants and found pics of carpenter ants and that is what we have. Whether they are doing anything problematic, I don't know. Another forum poster said to check where the steel deck is anchored at the bric of the house because if water is getting in, that is a perfect place for a carpenter ant infestation. So I'm going to investigate that as a priority although I don't know who might be an expert on that It might be worth mentioning that the door to the deck used to be a window so we had a window converted to a door in addition to adding the deck... So a number of places where perhaps the changes could end up with structural issues and/or risk of new places of entry from the outside, for ants

I read blogs about oil vs. water forever and I believe the answer is that a 2-part water based finish approaches/equals oil based in durability, and it dries faster & it doesn't off gas, which was important to us as the house is/was occupied. A hardwood floor is 3/4" thick. Perhaps floor tile is thicker but that seems strange. Further, if it matters much they can do a plywood underlayment or whatever to make the wood floors taller. That's what we had to do in our old home to make the new flooring level with the rest of the house (many random layers of flooring). Here's a gem of a hardwood blog: http://napervillehardwood.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-hardwood-floor-finish-part-3/ Next time, I will have Rubio Monocoat applied. I wasn't able to take the time to have the samples tested but everyone who tries it seems to convert permanently.