StLouie, looking forward to seeing pictures of your beautiful Cumaru floor and updates. Please give pictures of the overall room and maybe a close-up of the pretty wood grain and color. I feel you will be very happy. I love the width you chose also which is the width that I wanted but the engineered Brazilian Cherry floor I chose only came in 3.25" and 5" widths. If I ever move and can have solid wood floors and afford to replace whatever flooring is currently at my new place, I want an exotic wood (or stained maple in a cherry finish) that is 4" to 4.25" wide. I love my Brazilian Cherry floors and hope to next year replace my 21 year old bedroom carpet with these wood floors. I love Cumaru hardwood floors, otherwise known as Brazilian Teak, but I needed engineered wood floors due to my sub-floor and the location of my home. Cumaru hardwood is one of the hardest wood species and is very stable in color.

fit4life - I actually love the Brazilian walnut. I got it in a Satin finish and its held up quite well despite 2 kids and a husband who will wear work boots in the house and drag little rocks across the floor. The flooring guy did say that satin was a very durable finish, and Brazilian Walnut is a very hard wood and so far it seems that what he told us is true. Unfortunately, it did not come any lighter. The lighter option that we saw was Brazillian Cherry but it was too red for me. Mrsrose - thank you. I was afraid of the dark color too especially since I'm not the greatest housekeeper but to my surprise, its easy to mantain. All I do is sweep the floor every other week. I did have to do some major cleaning after delivery men trekked in some snow when they were bringing in my furniture but even then I used a spritz of orange glo on a microfiber dust mop and it came out ok. As far as my wall, we used BM Lenox Tan. I love the way it looks with the floors.

Yay! For you, jkom! Glenn that was a great link and I agree with the sentiment there. Eco-viability is a growing awareness albeit not growing quite as quickly as the problem! and I'm so happy to see thoughts like yours and jkom. I had considered wood for a renovation at one point too and I was most seriously considering the "reclaimed wood" from old wine barrels! Just the idea of that was wildly intriguing. In the end, though, we decided that the oak in the house is still perfectly good 80 years later - even after a few over-enthused previous-owner projects - and that it would be a shame to rip it up. It is in great shape and at ~80 years old, really hard, good quality old growth oak and pine (different parts of the house).

That is some SERIOUS movement! Wow. Diva floors for sure! Here are somethings that might make this more difficult than anticipated (by homeowner and hardwood flooring professional alike): 1. Exotic hardwoods are often VERY hard (as in they chew up and/or kill machines that try to work on them...like sanding machines) 2. Exotics are often very oily; which can make staining a bit of a chore 3. Factory finished floors like the one's in the photo often have aluminum oxide finishes = very difficult to remove during sanding (your photos do NOT show the 'normal' look of AO....but it is entirely possible it is there). It is possible a highly trained professional hardwood flooring refinisher can deal with this. It is also possible you won't find anyone who will even try. It really is "luck of the draw" when it comes to FINDING the high-end (ahem...expensive) flooring professional. And then it is another luck of the draw if said professional has the ability/tools/time to deal with this floor. If we assume the WORST case scenario (all three issues listed above are present) here's how it will play out: 1. You will find the very expensive professional who has dealt with this before and has SUCCESSFULLY stained/refinished an exotic like this. They will probably cost MORE than $5/sf for a REGULAR sand/refinish (like white oak). 2. Said professional will come in and realize you have aluminum oxide on the floor. That means an 'up charge' of $2/sf (going rate) to sand off AO finish. This also takes a day or two longer to accomplish (hence the up charge) 3. The exotic is deemed to be SUPER hard = another $2/sf up charge for all the extra machine work needed (hard exotics chew up sanding discs like they are Smarties). Again another day is added to the event. 4. The exotic in question is super oily making staining a MUCH more difficult event...but the professional gets it done to your satisfaction (the floor now looks 'painted') and because of the oiliness the polyurethane has to be chosen with care. Again you are looking at another $1-$2 up charge. If you are lucky, and everything works out, the Pro will only charge you the $2 up charge for sanding/removing the AO finish and not the other up charge for dealing with a super hard exotic. If we look at the math, $5/sf + $2/sf + $2/sf = $9/sf. It would be cheaper to paint the floor black and save up for another floor. Or it would be FASTER to remove the floor ($2/sf to remove) and then replace with $7/sf factory finished hardwood ($3/sf for install) = $12/sf. And there is something no one has discussed: the gapping between the planks. The floor has shrunk during the winter...which tells me the humidity in the home is not being maintained...and that tells me the HVAC system does NOT have the capacity to ADD humidity during the winter time. If you want a new hardwood floor in this home (which would be my recommendation) you will also need to UPDATE (ie. spend more money) on the home humidity control. That is an expense most people do not look at when looking at hardwood floors. In the end, I'm only speculating on how difficult this wood is going to be (and speculating on expense) to refinish. You won't know the ACTUAL cost until someone comes in and tells you their costs.