Lots of questions.

Price range of house?

Neighborhood?? A, B, C??

What do buyers expect in this neighborhood?

Are you selling turn key completely finished for as much as possible or just good and clean as is?

There's no guessing what a buyer will want plus if they are a good negotiator, they will say they want different from what you offer.

Depending on budget, it might be a faster sale or better return to sell as it is, just good and clean. There's little sense in spending a dollar just to get a dollar back on improvements.

If you must do improvements, shades of grey with white trim are currently popular paint colors.

Original hardwoods are awesome, so keep it wherever it is. You can clean it, possibly stain it with a lighter color to help blend the scratches, and then give it a couple of coats of glossy polyurethane to make them shine.

Keep the hardwood. Even if it is not perfect, people like it and those that don't will cover it with what they want. Bono makes a quick refinishing product. You might be able to get away with that.

I would go with a stone or tile look in the kitchen. Make it different from the hardwood in the rest of the house. The right laminate might work in the kitchen, but you could do the allure luxury vinyl, or the stick on tiles that you grout between (personally, I hate grout) or even sheet vinyl if it is an easy layout. There is some really nice sheet vinyl these days.

With white cabinets I would not do a light floor. Go medium color to ground the area. Darker is heavier, and it shows less dirt. Pick your countertops first. I would do a high end laminate. Some of them look like solid surface or stone. Medium to medium dark color to contrast the cabinets. Do not worry about matching the color of wood floor. It is a very different area, with a different purpose, it is good to stand out.

The problem is that you have warm (orangey) floors and the rest of the house is cool (gray and white). You will never be able to make those two look good together.

Use Robin’s guy. Isn’t he the guy Cimba’s uses?

For color scheme look at the recent solids that netted top dollar in your area. That’ll tell you the color scheme for your area.

For the kitchen floor, if it was me, I’d go to a flooring store to find a good looking vinyl and have it installed. Yes, more costly that diy Allure, BUT, big problem with Allure, they have very few stone/tile patterns anymore. You are NOT going to get a good look if the kitchen has a faux wood laminate next to the real hardwoods in rest of the house. Unless you can find an Allure pattern that looks like stone/ tile, and color looks good with the newly refinished floors., Allure won’t work.

Recent SOLDS! Not solids.

Keep the real hardwood mid-'50s floors but here's an argument for not refinishing them. You simply can't fortell a potential buyer's taste or preferences. What if you refinished them w/ a light stain and they simply must have dark?

What exact flooring and colors to put in? Get samples of laminate countertops and flooring. Take the samples and set against the hardwood floors and the cabinets see how the various colors look in the light and against the hardwood.

Original hard wood floors (orangeish color that are in pretty good (but not great/minor scratches etc) condition in most of house except kitchen. The hardwood was refinished 6 years ago so clean them and touch up the scratches. Do a you tube search this will help you to rejuvenate the hardwood floors.

What Color laminate floor would you put in the kitchen (white shaker cabinets and havent picked countertop yet) that butts up against the hardwood floors? I would not use a laminate it will look cheap. Go to home depot get a few samples of life proof and allure. Also go to lumber liquidator ask them the top 3 most popular flooring and see how the 3 flooring samples work with the hardwood floor. I bet it will be the click vinyl flooring plus its water proof. The cost for the kitchen and bathrooms (if the bathrooms are ceramic or porcelain then don't worry about them) to replace with a click vinyl will be $1 to $4. And the finish look will be worth it.

Or would you go over both old hardwood and kitchen with same laminate? no to laminate go with a click vinyl flooring. Ask at home depot and lumber liquidators what are the top 3 flooring choices that are most popular see what they say. Make sure in home depot you get the flooring person and not someone just working the area, the flooring person will know the most popular choices or lets hope he or she knows the most popular floors.

Here's what I have done with great success on original hardwood...but it's time consuming...

Assuming the floors are in decent shape...some scratches ok.

This is in lieu of refinishing...MUCH less expensive

1) Stain any scratches first

2) Wipe down the entire floor on your hands and knees with a large sponge and mineral spirits...this removes anything that will prevent the next step from bonding

3) Buy the following materials....a) Floor grade polyurethane b) A lamb's wool mop head and a handle/wood head to attach it to

4) Get some plastic bags...the kind they bag your groceries in at Kroger

5) After making sure the floor has all scratches colored/stained, and wiped with the mineral spirits....start in the room farthest from the front door...

6) put the plastic bags on your feet...double bagged, and rubber band them around your ankles

7) Pour out about 1/2 gallon of the poly on the floor, and use the lamb's wool mop to spread it gently, trying to even it out...work in an area about 4' x 10' before going to the next area

8) Continue the above, working your way towards a door to the room, so you can "back out" of the room

9) Continue for the entire house, finally backing out the exterior door

10) Close the door, and don't let anyone enter the house for at least 24 hours

You will come back to a floor that looks 80% better than it did before, at a cost of about 1/4 of the cost of refinishing

I've done it 3 times with very good results. It's messy and time consuming, but it works pretty well and material costs are low.

Tom in Illinois, did you see Robin’s post about Allure on sale today only? Travertine might work for your kitchen....travertine stone is a warm color stone, so the Allure travertine might go with the orange tones of your hardwoods.