Reolving what's under the lino and particle board shouldn't be hard: 1) Look very closely where the sink drain penetrates the floor, you may see what you need to know; or 2) pick a place in a bottom cab (I'd choose one with a bottom drawer, but any one will do.) Take a portable saber saw and cut out a square big enough to allow you to the take a lino knife and then a chisel to expose what's underneath. If you're careful you may be able to cut the cab floor hole on a inward slant giving you a piece you can just drop back in place and tape up. But even if you find that there's some form of wood floor underneath, you won't know what condition it's in. It could have been irrremediably stained and grungy, hence the decision to cover the whole thing with lino. (One of my floors turned out to have kerosene spilled on it, from an old kerosene cookstove. I'm covering up that with subfloor and lino). Or maybe the wood was fine but when they put down the particle board subfloor they stuck it down with black goopy (and maybe asbestos-y) glue (or leveling compound), or the sub floor was nailed down with dozens of now-rusted, ten penny nails. In any of these cases, the aesthetics of a wood floor may be not what you're hoping for. If you decide to go ahead and expose the floor, you can just cut the lino and particle board at the base of the cabs and install shoe molding to cover the exposed edge after refinishing the floor. Your countertops will be 1/2" higher, afterwards. hth L.

I feel like the hardwoods in the kitchen don’t go well with the cherry cabinets? I then have that huge hickory unit in the living room so I just wonder what hardwood color I could place throughout that would work with all of it? I definitely do not like the orange tone of the dining and office floor. The kitchen is yet another type, more of a brown with some red to it and a wider plank. A lot of them are hollow and lifting so we do plan on removing all of that anyways. Honestly at this point I’m thinking maybe I should remove the dining and office floors and just start all from scratch rather than buy new and then refinish all of that. I’m a little scared of the refinishing mess!! Would love any hardwood color suggestions. The sturdier the better too as we have very active dogs!

black herringbone floor. you already have a lot of busy elements, but no other black. I'd also do a charcoal grout to keep it understated. you can do real black slate or do a black porcelain tile. (or a charcoal porcelain tile comes in all diff sizes I like this one For a clients bathroom, I did a dark charcoal 12x24 floor tile, and a charcoal 1x4 herringbone in the shower.

If you have no plans to sell down the road put in what you want and what looks best with your furnishings. If there might be a chance of resale try to match the dark as close as possible as having 2 different floor colors could turn off potential buyers as they would be thinking they would have to sand and refinish all the flooring to match and that cost could reflect in an offer or the buyer not wanting to hassle with it and they walk. If you put in the light one and find you like it a lot next time your dark floors need to be refinished you could go in that direction with the stain color. Lighter is less trendy than dark. That said, and if you still aren't sure what way to go, listen to your gut as if you had loved the dark/light combo right away would you have come here?