That looks like good quality wood and in good shape. You will never be able to get a stain match that won't be very obvious, and it looks like there is all kinds of paint and other staining on the exposed floor. You should have the whole thing sanded and uniformly stained. It would look quite beautiful.

I agree that it will probably be best to have the entire floor done. If I remember correctly, it was somewhat common for people to only finish the area that would be exposed - as in there would be a large area rug with only finished floor around the perimeter. I will attach a link with a similar story, hope this helps! It looks like the floor has some great potential!

Here is a link that might be useful: Stained floor perimeter

It was VERY typical to see that in older houses where people made use of room-sized area rugs and linoleums. Those were the days before wall-to-wall carpet when I was a kid. My parents, when house hunting, used to roll their eyes when they saw people take those kinds of short-cuts and kept looking until they found a home with nice hardwood, kept in its original state. When wall-to-wall became mainstream, folks buying older homes like that, just covered it up when it was painted around the periphery thinking wood floors would never become popular again.

I have a bedroom upstairs we ripped the wall to wall out of with original plank floors dating back to the early eighteen hundreds. It has been painted two feet all around the baseboards as well. It also has globs of plaster, joint compound, and sealer all over where folks have painted before putting in new carpet, figuring it would be covered. Argh. I shall strip the whole floor now.

Thank you very much. I didn't know it was common to see this; it's my first house. I guess we will be redoing the whole floor then. Luckily the room is pretty small.
I'm just hoping they didn't do the same thing in the bedroom. I've only peeled back a small corner to see if it was hardwood also.

thanks!
Mary