ok just a few things.

I love walnut. even though its soft compared to other woods, I just love it.
What ever size widths you go with is up to you. if youre trying to maximize the amount of wood you get, do whatever the guy milling tell you.

Other thing is with whole logs, youre gonna get a lot of color variation, so doing random width might give you more options come install time to pick and choose which boards you want.

the other thing is You can stain walnut. you are limited to what you can stain it (colorwise) but it can take stain.

lastly, natural finish walnut gets lighter as it ages. especially in sunlight. its weird, and doesn't sound right, but as the finish ages (even with water bourne finishes) it makes the wood appear lighter...once you sand the old finish off it goes back to its original color, just something to keep in mind.

thanks for sharing Greg!

Here's a room with ~ 5-year-old unstained walnut, oil-based poly:

Here's a room with

Walnut is so gorgeous without stain, I wouldn't stain it myself. It looks very rich with just poly.

Wow, Weedy, that is quite a difference. Not sure if I would want my floor to change that much or not.

Wait, I wasn't trying to illustrate changing floor color. I went back and re-read the thread where gregmills said it lightens over time. I wouldn't say that we experienced that in 5 years. The first photo looks lighter because there's direct sunlight streaming onto the part in the foreground. Look at the wood not in the sunlight. It's the same tone as the 2nd photo.

Here's a photo of the older floor without sunlight on it.

Ah Weedyacres!!! Have just narrowed my choice down to character walnut (reclaimed locally) or character hickory. Really want walnut, but am worried about density (here we go again w Janka scale) and dogs. But weedyacres, your floors are beautiful & convincing me that I prefer the walnut. How have yours held up? From your pics, they still look fantastic. Thanks for your $.02!!