Jubilee, I guess I'll revise my remarks a bit by saying that I'm only going by what my designer taught me about the flow thing... Our house is not huge, it's a medium 2600 sf 2-story, so in essence the downstairs really is not that big. I wanted to mix like that, and she said in a small area (or at least not a LARGE area!) not to have so many different floorings. To avoid patchiness. To give flow, so it, well, flows. And seems larger and more cohesive. I have to say lately looking at model homes, her advice has been borne out as I've seen the same wood flowing throughout houses, with small amounts of carpet and stone here and there. Your carpenter is probably right, but he's probably also talking about very large houses, so that is a different story (than my house). I don't know if yours is a big house or normal house. Also, my own experience has been that the very best and most talented carpenters and cabinetmakers I've had, have not been especially genius at interior design, so I've learned to turn to my designer for design advice, and pretty much take their design advice with a grain of salt. Maybe yours is different than mine have been... Yes I have lived to regret two different floorings in abutting rooms. We had existing yellowish oak in kitchen/family room/hall/powder room (most of downstairs), and added pinkish-yellowish oak to an adjoining study. Actually it was the same wood, just ten years younger. I thought it would blend. It didn't. Since the ten year old floor was pretty grunged, we had someone distress the whole thing, including the brand new... and this included re-staining them to a really warm and mellow toasty color. Now they all match, and I absolutely love it, and have to say my designer was right about flow. I wonder if a solution like that might work for you, then you could have exactly the color you want, and flow as well. It cost me just over $2K to have the whole thing done, and I live in expensive Southern California. Now that I have seen it done, I think I could do it myself if I wanted to work hard.

To be safe go with the same in both areas, but for a specific answer.... It depends. There really is no single thing that is Red Oak or White Oak. There are at least ten different types of trees that produce White Oak and ten different trees that produce Red Oak. Many White Oaks are "redder" than Red Oaks. So in the end, you have to just look at the two woods side by side. In Red Oak the pores are open, while in White Oak the pores are plugged (this, rather than the color tendancies, is the absolute difference). White Oak is for boats because it is resistant to water damage, Red Oak isn't. With some effort they can be stained to look virtually identical and neither deepen as they age, so that color will remain consistent, however, they take stain very differently. Red Oak soaks up stain while White Oak leaves most of the stain on the surface of the wood. I prefer White Oak everywhere, I love White Oak for kitchens because of its resistance to damage, in the end though, I wouldn't make a decision based on the Oak species of my floor although I would try to be consistent... Good Luck

@millworkman Thank you for your feedback. I know they will not look the same as they are different woods, but I am hoping to find something that will get me that lighter color with the least undertones if that makes sense.

@Sales Team I REALLY wished I had done this - I wish I had known to do this...between the insurance adjuster who promised to make us 'whole' by covering the cost of the old wood also being sanded, scraped and stained again AND the flooring company that was recommended to me as being skilled at matching AND an interior designer, no one mentioned this as even potentially being an issue. We have the same wood, same grade and size but I just didn't realize that the old wood would have changed so much from the chemicals soaking in. I could either go back to the insurance company to try to push them to cover new wood in the adjoining room (the den) but then now this will push the flooring company out when they are booked and pushes us out an additional 2-3 weeks since the new wood would have to acclimate and this new area would have to be worked into their schedule. An inconvenience for all and typically I wouldn't bat an eye to push for this but we have an 18 and 21 year old and both kids will be leaving home around the same time (college for one and moving out for another) and I REALLY wanted to make this holiday season really memorable and go all out decorating. I know it's trivial to many and definitely a first world problem but it's something that's disappointing to me nontheless... If you have experience with this, do you (or does anyone else) think that the NEW red oak will 'catch up' to looking bleached out like the OLD wood since we'll be using the same custom color on it (has one part ebony since it has a green undertone to counteract the pink)? Or will they always look different??? Thanks so much for responding!!