We are in the midst of our own flooring replacement project - 450sf in our 1100sf condo. We've completed the research, analysis, selection, and purchase phases - the stock now sitting in our condo becoming "acclimated" and waiting for our installer to free himself up for the installation. This week, we hope to complete the selection of stain.

My wife's taste is ultra-contemporary and gravitates toward dark, chocolaty tones. Her choice: 5"-wide Brazilian Ipe planks. Ipe may well be the hardest flooring lumber you can buy, somewhere around 3800 on the Janka scale. It *is* on the pricey side, though - we paid $5.79/sf. We purchased from Uncle Hilde's Lumber Outlet in NH (www.unclehildes.com), and thus far our experience with them has been nothing but positive.

I hope to post a follow-up after completion of the installation in a few weeks.

Best of luck,
- Bob -

Hi bob_milos,
What subfloor do you have in your condo? Can we assume you purchased prefinished Ipi flooring? Thanks.

We recently purchased unfinished Patagonian Rosewood (3/4" x 4") for a contemporary remodel project. The actual species name is Curupay. It's still waiting to be installed, but it looks beautiful even without finishing - quite dark brown/red with significant "stripes". We purchased online from FantasticFloor, and were very happy with the service and quality of the product.

Bob, thank you - that sounds like a great option. (And thanks everyone else.)

The point about beveled edges is interesting. I thought I read somewhere that beveled edges are common for woods where there are significant height variances ... that is, the better-grade woods don't need beveling but the lesser grades manufacturers bevel in order to make up for the less-tight variances. (Not that this is the only reason for beveling, some people like the look.)

I like the old-school idea of staining great wood in place.

"better-grade woods don't need beveling but the lesser grades manufacturers bevel in order to make up for the less-tight variances."

I may be wrong, but I think that all pre-finished flooring comes with some sort of beveling at the edges. This is because, regardless of the grade of the wood, there are likely to be slight variations that will create very small "ridges" where adjoining boards meet. These ridges are knocked down by a light sanding of the floor before the finish coats are applied. This final light sanding is not possible with a pre-finished floor, hence the use of beveling to eliminate the ridges.

That makes sense.

bob_milos told the exact differences between prefinished and job site finished wood floors. Both Ipe and Patagonian Rosewood are extremely hard and stunningly beautiful wood species. We have both in prefinished format for years. They are still top sellers. Good luck with all your projects. Do not forget to post some photos on this great forum.

Cinnamonsworld, we installed a hardwood that sounds just like what you are looking for. It is one of the hardest hardwoods available and is in the dark reds with variations in colour tones. It is called Merbau and is from Indonesia. Our installer did an awesome job -- no cracks between boards -- smooth as satin. It is a very stable hardwood which is perfect for our Calgary climate. There was no stain necessary for this hardwood, only the varathane coating which is in a satin finish. Everyone who sees it, loves it, and a couple of people we know have also put it in their houses because of its beauty.

I have Ipe with glitza on it throughout my house. It is beautiful but $$$ and putting the glitza on it took a lot longer than expected (we lived in a hotel during that time)

All though it does look great I am not sure I would do it again, mainly because it was super pricey and my floors still scratched, due to kids etc.

Laurarenos, I searched Google images for merbau floors and what a gorgeous wood! (Not very grainy, and what grain is there I'd call pretty.)

A little rambling follow-up: We hope to schedule our project to start in the next month or two. I will probably look a little more into merbau but so far my husband and I have settled on one photo that we're showing to our wood-floors guy (in the biz >20 years etc.), and it's attached (Armstrong sapele in roasted bean, engineered). He's making up a sample for us of that look but without so much beveling, and one other, likely in American walnut but handscraped boards and then stained (would be on-site). After seeing the sample we'll work on what we can do about pricing and options to get as close to that look as possible for our budget. (We want a great floor are willing to pay some premium for it, but within reason.)

One thing our guy was talking about was selecting boards for the most consistent color throughout the house ... they can do some things with the stain itself to encourage not a ton of variation between boards, but he mentioned sometimes ordering a bit more wood than usual can be a good idea as you get to pick and choose the boards you want to lay down with more discretion. (He's been very much more of the 'you don't need to overspend' type with his suggestions, so I'm inclined to buy his rationale here.

The exotics aren't entirely out of the picture. While looking at woods I got curious about what it feels like to walk on the different hardnesses of woods. I think we had something like 5/8" oak, which upon looking at the torn-out boards looks softer and more flexible - by miles - than the samples I've seen of teak! So those of you with 3/4" tropical woods, are the floors harder than conventional-wood floors? Does a cork underlayment even do much for tropical woods for the feel of walking on them, or entirely superfluous?

The other thing I got curious about was whether the handscraping I've seen on tropicals has tended to be different from the handscraping I've seen on softer woods for a reason... because of the hardness of the wood and the difficulty (historically speaking) of scraping. That is ... the tropicals that I've seen handscraped have long, shallow, flowing scrapes but the softer woods I've seen handscraped have tended to have more grooves and a more dramatic texture of handscraping. (To me it separates the tropical-floor or Asian-floor look from the Americana look ... however unauthentic that view may be.)

I saw when looking at hardwood samples how the difference in the wood itself between something like birch, or even oak, and teak or other hard tropical woods, is night and day. On the edge and underside, the former looks like cheap plywood vs. an incredibly solid, dense and beautiful wood. (Certainly the former have their applications and fans, and arguably may be a lot easier to work with where nailing and sawing is concerned!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Armstrong sapele in roasted bean

One of the hardest woods is American Mesquite (mostly from the Texas area). The National Wood Flooring Association recognizes mesquite as the most dimensionally stable hardwood commercially available (this means that it can handle moisture better - doesn't swell and dry). Its also a trash wood (has huge thorns in the wild and grows in pastures, etc) and is thus considered green by many. You do not stain or poly and it ages to a gorgeous color then stops (unlike cherry).

"We are in the midst of our own flooring replacement project - 450sf in our 1100sf condo. We've completed the research, analysis, selection, and purchase phases - the stock now sitting in our condo becoming "acclimated" and waiting for our installer to free himself up for the installation. This week, we hope to complete the selection of stain.

My wife's taste is ultra-contemporary and gravitates toward dark, chocolaty tones. Her choice: 5"-wide Brazilian Ipe planks. Ipe may well be the hardest flooring lumber you can buy, somewhere around 3800 on the Janka scale. It *is* on the pricey side, though - we paid $5.79/sf. We purchased from Uncle Hilde's Lumber Outlet in NH (www.unclehildes.com), and thus far our experience with them has been nothing but positive.

I hope to post a follow-up after completion of the installation in a few weeks."

A project update:

First, we sampled LOTS of different stains for our Ipe floor, including products from Penofin, Zar, Old Masters, Minwax, and General Finishing. We were disappointed with all of them. Some were like paint, sitting *on* the surface of the plank, rather than being absorbed into it. Others never dried fully and were tacky to the touch. None of the colors were what we were looking for.

Three days before our installer was scheduled to start his job, we had no solution for a stain color. Panic set in, and my wife threw herself at the mercy of a couple of architects she'd had contact with in the past. One of them flat out told her it was a huge mistake to try to stain Ipe, but if she insisted on moving forward with it, her best bet was to contact a furniture finishing specialist with a phenomenal reputation. We called him, agreed to his extortion, and thought we had an agreement to get the job done after our installer finished. Without going into all the gory details, it all fell apart on the night before he was supposed to show up to do the work. More panic.

We then threw ourselves at the mercy of our installer and asked him if he could do the finishing. We selected a color from the product line he works with and went ahead with the first coat of stain. Three days later, it still hadn't dried. More panic. Called yet another local finishing guru, who assured us that he could bail us out without it "costing an arm and a leg." He instructed our installer to remove the ill-fated initial coat of stain, finishing with a sanding with 120 grit paper.

Yesterday, we received a few sample boards from him. They look amazing. We settled on BonaKemi's Jacobean. Now waiting for his crew to free up for our job - hopefully, next week.

Stay tuned for further developments...

B.

What a drama... thanks for the update and best wishes with it all! Husband and I are waiting on a couple more samples (BR-111 Antiquity handscraped angelim) and having the "I like the armagnac" (me) vs. the "I like the cognac" (him) debate. After keying a whole bunch of samples of other things with the end of a corkscrew, I'm surprised but the Anderson maple in "chocolate truffles" showed the marks less than others in some ways. It's still a softer wood and will dent but scratches don't show up badly. (They have some anti-scuff technology.) That is a beautiful wood by the way. Most scratch-and-dent resistant of all was Lumber Liquidators' Bahia Barra jatoba handscraped... $3.99 a square foot, made by Va. Millworks. It has a rather matte finish. BUT... that is engineered and I had already convinced by husband against engineered. Darn it. :)

A little update: We've gotten samples in now of the 5" or so handscraped angelim from BR-111 in the dark color "Armagnac." It is dark but very pretty. It is quite scratch-resistant. I'd say better than anything we've seen except that Bahia Barra I mentioned above.

When we looked at a sample of the Armagnac Angelim in-store, it had a really glossy finish that I could also make an impression in with my fingernail. The sample they sent us wasn't high-gloss, and I couldn't fingernail-carve it. I did resort to a corkscrew-scrape and that did scratch it (like every other piece of wood I've tried) but it was faint and uniformly colored. (There were some hardwood prestained samples in other lines that with the corkscrew test would uncover light wood right underneath the thin, fragile layer of stain.)