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We are currently renovating a house from the 1950s. It has hardwood floor in the living room and bed rooms. Needless to say that the floor have seen better times. We are now planning to refinish the floors and would have the option to stain the wood before the top coats are applied.
The house is an investment property and will be rented and later sold.
If the floor is stained it will have the same color for all rooms. I am not sure about the color it should get.
We plan to paint the walls in a color ranging between light beige to yellow-/orange-ish, baseboards and door trims white.
The main question is should the floor get dark or bright. I am concerned that a dark stained floor will make the rooms look dark or perhaps appear smaller. On the other hand dark wood seems to be liked by a lot of people.
If the wood type is all the same wood you can just put poly on them and they will have the same color in all the rooms after they are sanded. That's the beauty of having wood floors. There is no reason to stain the floors.
Scratches on unstained hardwood are much easier to repair, which you are going to need to do if this is to be a rental unit for any period of time. We have natural white oak floors with a matte, water-based poly for a topcoat and it's super easy to repair even deep scratches left by our kids/pets. If the floor were stained these repairs would stand out like a sore thumb.
If you have a reliable and inexpensive floor guy, stain the wood. If if not, then just poly the wood floor and be done.
Of course, if you are trying to attract a high end renter and the rest of your finishings in the house are expensive looking then you will need to stain the floor. The average renter will just be happy with wood floors and you won't need to bother.
When I originally bought my apartment, I had light gray parquet floors installed, circa 1990.....about 12 years ago I had all the floors re-sanded and I stained them myself a "jacobean", by minwax. They are a very dark chocolate brown, and then I polyed them with a matte finish.
I absolutely love them. I like the dark floors very much and would never live with natural just polyed floors. I do not like, however any reddish or orangeish colored wood. I also do not like blonde natural wood either, but this is really a personal preference as everyone likes different home things.
Hardwood guy here, on the poly note oil vs water, oil is better than 'most' water based polys with a few exceptions, one of these exceptions is a product called bona traffic its a great finish just pricey. My dad was the same way as your guy (im 3rd gen floor sander/refinisher) this poly grew on him so much we put it on his floor. Think what really get's them its totally different procedure which is a pain to learn after doing it the other way so long. Just my 2 cents
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