Stacey, you have such an interesting house! Your furniture looks modern, yet somehow traditional. I don't know how to say what I want to say... And I love the lamp with the blue base. I just bought one similar and am totally in love with it. Who knew? I really like the Edgecomb Gray on the monitor, as well as the Revere Pewter. I think both of these colors contribute to an eclectic yet contemporary feel that is warmed up by the old school type fireplace. I do have a suggestion. Instead of white built-ins, why not consider having the bookcases painted in the wall color you choose? With the black slate as a centerpiece, I think it may be too choppy with the white. Particularly if you go with a gray, this might be appropriate. I love all the muted grays and gray whites that Holly does on her furniture (Life in the Fun Lane Blog) as well as Anne Turner's Mouses' Back (Farrow & Ball paint shade a browned gray) kitchen cabinets. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking for you, although maybe lighter, like the Rev. Pewter or the Edgecomb instead of the depth of Mouse's Back. Even doing the wall in a gray with a little darker shade on your built-ins could be great. Red Here is a link that might be useful: Mouse's Back Cabinets from Blueprint Bliss Blogspot

If you like your current colour then go ahead and put down a new version of it. If you want something different then I would go lighter. I love the look of red oak in the 'buff'. It is a pretty wheat/sand coloured wood. So long as you work with a high-end water based polyurethane that does NOT yellow, you will have a very pretty 'pale wood' floor without much effort. Your existing finish appears to be oil based (or oil modified) which makes the floor yellow. The strong gold tones in your wood right now = the finish. Did your refinisher apply a coat of FINISH over your colour samples? If they did NOT....then you are picking BLIND. And I mean screaming and crying and tearing your hair because your beautiful gray floors turned to a muddy orange mess. Not good. Do you see the pale colour of the raw wood? You can keep that colour (very close to it) with 3 coats of water based polyurethane like Bona Traffic HD. Keep the gloss level a snick on the low side (satin is a nice low-gloss option) and you keep that pretty 'swedish blonde' look.

Believe it or not, Black Magic has some red in it. Because of that, a cold start white abutting may be jarring. Not much is said about but, as Kylie says: it has enough warmth in it without going yellow on you.

Minwax/DuraSeal have a STUNNING selection of red based stains that work VERY well on RED OAK to go with MAHOGANY (which is normally a strong red/black colour). There are SOOOO many options....but that will be determined by your TRIM. We need photos of what we are working with.