The only way to know for sure if either the walnut or provincial will work with your kitchen cabinets is to see a sample in your space with your lighting.

Even if the flooring pro is refinishing your existing floors, he (or she!) should be able to prepare (or loan) you a couple of boards in the finish you are considering. Be sure it is the same species of wood (red oak, white oak, whatever) so that your comparison is valid. If you like one of these samples, then you can have a sample done on your flooring (it'll have to be sanded anyway as part of the refinishing process, so you might as well commit).

Now I will say that I like what you already have. It's classic. It's not trendy. Maybe you have been influenced by those who say they hate orange. Or maybe your hate of the orange is organic to you.

If you know what direction you are going with the kitchen remodel, you can always use that final result in picking a floor color now. So what if your new (long-term final) floor color conflicts with the existing kitchen cabinets for a couple of years? That will just motivate you to plan the kitchen reno and to save the funds needed. Which will get you what you want in the end!

@kempek01 thank you for the recommendation. We will have a pro coming to do the floors, I will ask him to do the sample stain in the kitchen as this is my biggest worry. As far as kitchen cabinets, they are in a pretty good condition overall. My thoughts were to replace the doors to shaker style and may be add a row on top to go all the way to the ceiling and have glass doors on that top row.Or, other option is to buy white doors and paint boxes to match doors and go all the way to the ceiling as well.  Either way, it will be an investment down the road. I dont hate cabinets even though they seem to have more orange in them then the floor. I just don't like the existing floor color at all whatever it is.

when they strip them down I would seriously consider natural or just a honey/ light stain. I think youd be happier w a non dark floor.

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@herbflavor, thank you. I will definitely look into lighter colors as well but my initial thought was that I don't really want light color.

I agree with herbflavor, go light with the floors. I would even suggest that you not stain the floors at all. Leave them natural with just a sealer and protective finish.

I have a late 1980’s home that has the dreaded ”golden oak”. When we bought the home we had the floors refinished but left them unstained. They looked nice with my oak kitchen caninets. When I redid my kitchen 19 years ago I changed the cabinets to natural cherry and kept the natural/unstained floors. I still have golden oak trim and doors everywhere else.

I believe my floors are ash which is very similar to oak flooring.

You can see the golden oak trim in this picture.

I have lived with these light floors for 20 years and see no downside to them.

If you decide to change your cabinets in the future, wood floors even look good with white cabinetry as you can see in my DD’s kitchen

@badgergal, what is the floor stain color in your picture with the white cabinets?

The floors in the white kitchen that I posted are maple. They were in the house when my daughter bought it so I dont know exactly how old they but they are more than 15 years old. They were refinished when my daughter remodeled her kitchen. They do not have any stain on them. They were sanded down and then sealed. I am not sure if it was Bona Seal Natural or Bona Seal Classic. After they were sealed they were then finished with Bona Traffic.

The floors in the other kitchen (mine) are ash which is very much like white oak. They are also unstained but are sealed and finished. My floors are 34 years old.

@badgergal , thank you. Ours are red oak, they have been sanded for the most part and getting prepped for staining in a few days. We tested some stains and now it is the decision time.

I think we are leaning towards the top right at this point. It is weathered oak mixed with white.

The top right stain looks good. Go for it!

It is officially done. Pretty happy with the way color turned out. We went with neither of the samples I posted below.  Ended up with much lighter color. It is so much prettier in person.

Your floors look beautiful. Such an improvement over the previous color. They look great with the existing cabinet color and if you decide to someday go with white cabinets they will look great with them too.