Personally, I don't think it's necessary for you handrails to match your floor. Nice wood floors are sort of like bluejeans, in that they usually work well with other things. My handrails are a beautiful decorative blond wood, and they have never matched my floor. However, if your handrails/stairs are a major focal point of your room, you may feel that they should match to unify the space. In any case, it's your house and you should do whatever you think you'd like best!

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.

Redroze, I'm just getting back online and seeing your questions, so I'll try to answer what I can. My new floor in the LR/DR was not pre-finished, it was all site-finished. I did put a pre-finished floor down in my office (no pics, sorry) because I work from home and didn't have time to be without my office for the week it would have taken to have floor sanded etc. The pre-finished does have a different feel to it than the site-finished. I wouldn't say it's grooved, just a more defined difference in between the individual planks. The office doesn't adjoin any other room, except the tiled hallway, so I didn't worry so much about the wood being different there. I see from your pictures what you mean about running the planks the same way and wanting to be sure things don't look odd. One idea might be to take up some of your FR planks, like the first 12 or so, and then put them back down interwoven with the new planks. That way there's not a clear line in between the 2 rooms, but rather a more gradual blending. Here's another couple of pictures, this time of my family room. The first one is a before shot of the hardwood floor + a rug-like carpet. The floor created a frame around the carpet. I had the carpet taken up and new hardwood put in where the carpet originally was, then everything sanded and refinished. You absolutely can't tell where the old wood was vs where the new started. In this case, the new is random width because it opens directly to the kitchen (as opposed to the LR/DR which is all the same width). So, one house, all new site-finished floors in the LR & DR, all new pre-finished floor in the office, original/refinished in the kitchen, and half&half refinished + original in the family room. Boy did we have dust! Hope this helps! New:

"Are you suggesting I paint the fireplace mantel, staircase, etc a totally different color like blue or green? " Yes,as appossed to re-staining because (A) re-staining is so difficult to do a lastng job,and (B) paint offer's unlimited shades and tones to work with. Matching colors is far easier than coordinating them,stain make's it even more difficult. Frankly I'm not certain what I'd do after seeing the home in person. I suggested blue and/or green based on your discription(which I believe is accurate) of red floors and orange elsewhere. Call major paint distributors to see if they have a consultant in your area. If not,consider asking a paid consultant to have a look or taking actual samples of wall paint,floor and other woodwork to their office. Alternatly,use a camera with higher color resolution. After hearing you are already pleased with blue gray in another area I'm confident you can hit a double or triple useing it again. A color pro might turn it to a home run or grand slam. In the interest of full disclosure,this is not my field of expertise,it's just something I injoy messing around with. I may also be underestimating your eye for color and your desire to accomplish decorating without consulting decorators. I do it all the time simply because I like the satisfaction of "making it my own" rather than doing it "according to the book".