I am also considering these two companies for the Brazilian Cherry Vs. Santos Mahogany Vs. Amendoim. I want my floor to have a red tone. They both seem to have a good wear layer on top that is a sawn cut of the wood. The platinum version of the Scandian is thicker plywood but the same 3.6 MM wear layer as the 3.25" width BR-111 Triangulo. The 5" width Triangulo is only 3.00 MM thick but has longer boards. The Scandian Platinum has mostly 48" length boards.

I also would like pics and would like to know why one was chosen over the other.

I finally chose my tile and decided to go with the Rialto White so that the wood will contrast nicely in my living room, dining room and family room around the two foyer tiled areas.

I heard that Scandian Manufactures the wood for BR-111. It seems that BR-111 is easier to buy locally.

I went floor shopping today, and I think the Santos Mahogany will be too red for us. We saw a pretty floor at the flooring store, Tiete Chestnut, a BR111 engineered floor which is now on the top of our list. My concern is that the Brazilian Cherry may also be too red for us once it "matures". Decisions Decisions!!! I heard the same about Scandian..that they manufacture BR-111. The floor store spoke very highly of the BR-111 Triangulo product. Few stores seem to carry the Scandian product (atleast in my area).

Back when we were picking our floor, we debated between the Santos Mahogany and Brazilian Cherry. We ultimately decided that Santos Mahogany was just too dark for us, and we liked the more orangy-red color of the Brazilian Cherry, so we went with the BR-111 Triangulo Brazilian Cherry.

You asked for pictures -- I'll drag mine out (I'm sure some other people in this forum are sick of them at this point!) You can see my floors here. These pictures were taken about a year and a half after installation -- the floors may be very slightly darker/redder now than in the images, but not by much.

I don't consider my floors to be too red -- there's a good amount of orange and brown in them, although there are some individual planks that are quite red (there's a decent amount of variation amongst the planks, as you can see in the images -- if you're looking for a more uniform look, do NOT go with Brazilian Cherry).

One caveat, though -- because we live in a hot climate, we tend to leave our blinds and curtains drawn to help keep the house cool, so the floors don't get as much light as they might -- it's possible that floors exposed to more natural sunlight may get darker. Your mileage may vary, yada, yada, yada :)

Rivkadr, every time I see your floors, I fall in love with Brazilian Cherry floors all over again. I love the coloring of your floors and that is the color I would want but my samples are not as pretty as your floor. I really like the variation in the colors that makes the floor interesting.

If I was to buy the BR-111 Engineered Triangulo Brazilian Cherry, my only fear is one day when I sell my townhouse and move the many file cabinets and cherry office furniture, the floor will look funny. Will the rest of the floor catch up in color and this will not be a problem for the one who buys my townhouse?

Thanks for letting me know that the Santos Mahogany is darker than the Brazilian Cherry since some of my samples of the Santos Mahogany look lighter than the Brazilian Cherry and some are darker.

Part of my office will get no sunlight at all while parts will so that is my worry also but I just love the rich colors of the Brazilian Cherry floors in your home Rivkadr.

Again thanks for sharing. I never tire of your floor.

I can't say for sure that all brands of Santos Mahogany are darker, but the ones I was looking at sure seemed to be that way. The ones that were in my price range also seemed to lean more towards the brown spectrum of things (not saying all of them do this -- just the ones that I could afford at the time), as I recall, and I really wanted something that was more red.

Regarding darkening -- all I can tell you is my experience with it. As an example, we had some storage cabinets that stood on each side of our TV to hold DVDs and video tapes. The bases on them were probably 2' x 2'. We got rid of them at some point, and of course, the floor underneath them was substantially lighter than everywhere else. As time has passed, the one square patch that is closest to the window has darkened to match the rest of the floor just fine. The other patch, that is on the other side of the TV has darkened much more slowly, and is still slightly noticeable -- this is 100% due to the fact that the TV and the stand that it rests on are blocking the sunlight from shining directly on that part of the floor. I'd imagine that if you have a light spot that you want to darken quickly, just make sure it gets a lot of direct sunlight, and it will catch up pretty fast.

I share your concerns about the splotchiness of the floor -- some day when I sell my house, there's going to be large light squares/rectangles wherever my rugs or furniture are. But my limited experience so far has shown that the light splotches do catch up eventually, usually within 2 - 6 months depending on the amount of sun, so I'm just going to have to tell the potential buyer to deal...

My one piece of advice for people is this (and I've probably already mentioned this in a couple of threads): when you install the floor (and this is a lot easier if you're doing the installation yourself, room by room), is to wait to put any furniture in for a couple of weeks, and open the room to as much sunlight as possible. We found our floors did the most noticeable darkening in the first few weeks (seriously -- we accidentally left the blue installation tape on some wood -- came back the next day and removed the tape, and the wood had already darkened so much in just one day that you could clearly see the tape outlines). The one room that we (accidentally) did this two week "seasoning" period in has a much less noticeable shading difference in the places where the furniture rests. If we move our bed, or our dressers, or bookcases (you can guess which room it is now!), you can hardly see any light spots at all where they used to be.

Oh, and lynn -- regarding what you said here:

I love the coloring of your floors and that is the color I would want but my samples are not as pretty as your floor

Is it the color of the sample that you're unhappy with? The samples that they send you are probably non-darkened pieces of wood -- i.e. what you get when you first install. Our floor was very browny-orange when we first installed, and I remember at the time I was rather disappointed -- thankfully the floor has improved with time! Have you tried sticking the sample next to the window for a few weeks so it can darken? Also, as an experiment, I would cover part of the wood with some thick paper or something like that, so you can get a sense of how much the wood will darken in a short period of time. (if you've had the wood just lying around on your kitchen table for a while, it's possible it's already started darkening)

Thank you rivkadr, one of my samples got richer and more red like I wanted when I let it out in the sun directly. I guess I have so many samples from different companies of the same wood trying to put them together to see how it would look. Some samples are very brown with no red and others are the color I like.

A local flooring guy (just found out today that he is a friend of my client) may bring a big piece of a sample to my home tomorrow of the Brazilian Cherry since he is installing a floor for a customer that does not want the shorter boards so he may bring several over to have me see bigger pieces down.

So far every time I see Rivkadr's floors I fall in love with Brazilian Cherry floors again. I am wanting my floors to be like hers with the orangy-red color with some lighter boards. I do not see any dark brown planks and none of her planks on her floor are real dark like some of the samples from the stores. Does Engineered Wood floors just not darken as much? Or it is that Rivkadr's boxes included lighter flooring with the color I like?