I would do the mid-tone brown in the basement, but if you go with LVP, we had a flooring rep tell us not to do stairs in LVP. He said they're too slick and carpet is a better choice.

^^ use vinyl planking

I would rather the basement not look dark and dismal than match it. Go lighter, a medium shade. Not grey. Not blonde.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Agree with everyone's recommendation for no hardwood in the basement.
We do have carpet on the stairs, so basically, we'll transition from dark wood to carpet to light wood. Would that be odd? or stick with dark color in the basement as well? It's a walkout basement so it gets a good amount of light.

I would do light brown LVP on the basement floor and stairs.
If you have very young kids keep the carpet stairs until they are older for safety.

OP - are you worried about what happens when you sell the house in however many number of years? Or worried that you won't like it one way or another, once you get the floors put in?

We have vinyl in the basement and initially we went with a color similar to our hardwood upstairs, a medium brown. Then it flooded and we had to rip it out and decided to go with a much lighter floor. It really brightened up the basement. Our staircase is behind a door. The top part matches our upstairs floors, stairs are painted white and the basement is a light wood color. It looks fine, also because it is an entirely different floor material. The same wood stained a different color would probably stand out more to people.

Nope, floors don't need to match upper level. Lighter flooring will prevent basement from looking like a dungeon and help to see little critters that often show up down there.