We have hardwood floors in our house and are about to start a remodel that involves sanding and refinishing the floors. Our GC has been telling us to not go to a lighter shade than we currently have because the darker stain of the original floor may soak deeper into the wood than is removed with sanding. Is this true? Can we choose a lighter color than we currently have?

Your GC is generally correct. Going lighter is often difficult to pull off consistently, there are a lot of variables. The unknown variable for him is the customer's expectation and reaction if going lighter is not 100%.

Path of least resistance for him and sub is going same or darker.

That being said, it's your project and you should be happy at the end. If you let them know this is important to you, he might be cool and do some color samples.

We had wood floors sanded an stained a shade lighter.

They can put down samples so you can see. It shouldn't be an issue imo.

Depends on how much is taken off in sanding process.

Can you tell us what species of wood? And generally what color do you have, and what do you want?

If maple or other closed grain wood, more sanding will likely be needed. But an open grain wood like oak (red or white) is much more stain friendly and you may not have to take off as much.

In general, the greater the difference between existing and desired, the more sanding that may be required with any species. But as evan said, do samples.

On our second home we stupidly thought the hardwood could be sanded. It was in rough shape.

We should have done more research as we found some planks in the attic....Bruce Hardwood Flooring... 1.2mm-1.5mm wear layer. Amazing what it probably saved the builder in 2002 by going that cheap...maybe $700 or less.

Never will make that mistake again, but it wouldn't have changed much. Hopefully we or the future owner appreciates our new 5mm+ oak floors.

We have Red Oak flooring probably in a brownish-reddish finish like cherry (unsure of exact color as floors were done before we purchased). Looking to go to something like country white.

Oh, that is a stark difference.

I think country white is going have a red hue with red-oak. People tend to use white oak unless you are okay with the reddish tone.

Not sure if you keep up on things, but European white oak is really popular because there is a big trend in light colored flooring and it was easier to source for a while.

Personally, I think the light flooring will be a 2015-2025 period.

All good advice thus far.

A licensed interior designer would
a) give the best advice
b) see if other elements in that room could serve to lighten the space as desired, instead of floors

Secondary, cheaper advice may come from upper end paint/stain floor shops that employ a free in-house, experienced decorator to give advice

Any photos of the entire room to share here?

We went through this about a year ago. Had some existing white oak that was a dark stain, some existing red oak that was a medium stain, and added some new white oak. Went with the same light stain on all and it looks great and consistent.

The red oak was bleached prior to staining.