I think your problem is the lack of direct sunlight. I have BR-111 Brazilian Cherry as well, and I've found that any lightened areas that get direct sunlight "catch up" fairly quickly, but other areas that don't get direct light are much, much slower (I have one patch in my living room that gets almost no sunlight, and it's barely darkened at all -- on the other side of the room that's under a window, there was a patch that darkened up to match the floor around it within a few months. You can't even see that light patch anymore.)

I'd be curious myself to know if artificial lights would do anything. Supposedly it's the UV light from the sun that darkens the wood, so would a black light do the trick?

Villabacio, do you have any pics to show us how much the wood darkens up so we can see under the rug and the darkened area?

I read that Brazilian Cherry floors also darken up with fluorescent lighting. Maybe you can buy a hanging fluorescent lamp to use to try to darken up the other areas.

I still adore the exotic wood floors, especially Brazilian Cherry, Kempas, Pradoo and Santos Mahogany.

Villabacio, despite the darkening problem, are you happy with your floors? I just love the color of exotic wood flooring with the variations. Does your floor still have variations in the colors on the boards with some light despite so many darker?

It takes a long time for the flooring to ever catch up when you have a dramatic color differnce.... especially when there is a hard edge like a rug makes. It will eventually blend. Exotics like BC and Tigerwood are notorious for this. I took some pictures of one job that shows how fast the change occurs in one months time.

On this job the lady had walk off mats at the entry doors and never moved them. She finally did move them and said it took 6 or 9 months for those areas to blend. Her problem now is the lighter shade underneath the area rug/carpet. She has the house up for sale and regrets very much putting that area rug in way too quick.

I advise all of 'em.... hold off on the rugs and shift/move the large furniture for the 6-9 months.

Here is a link that might be useful: Exotic color change

Jerry, thanks for sharing the link and letting us see your website to see what wonderful professional work you do. I wish you lived near me to help me with my floor since I keep getting different answers on installation over my slab and costs of moving all my heavy furniture. I just want m job done and done professionally soon.

Your website is slow to download but was worth the wait.

Thanks for letting us see the darkening and why rugs need to be not placed on the floor right away. I still love the exotic wood species despite their color change.

Thank you Lynn2006, there is something wrong with my server and I can't seem to get anyone to listen. :(

I have seen you posting alot lately and i thought you had already made a decision. My bad, ..... what issues are holding you back?

I had decided a while back on the BR-111 Brazilian Cherry Triangulo Engineered wood and got a good price from a local store that was close to an Internet Price except I have to pay sales tax. The installers they sent over here gave me a good price also and I was read to buy everything from the store until the store owner told me the installers changed their mind and instead of moving the heavy cabinets a little bit away from the floor and pulling up sections of the carpet (is on tackles on the edges but the pad and carpet are not glued down over the slab) and gluing down the floor and moving the heavy 42" wide 5 drawer Hon putty cabinets back on top, they want everything out of the two room home office (dining room and living room) and everything out of the family room (very easy to do since I have light furniture in there and not much but a sofa, recliner, small TV stand, TV, and end tables and coffee table that are very light weight glass with cherry legs). Then they have to seal the floor and I have to buy an expensive sealer and wait a day to put everything back. So the stress of emptying four 5-Drawer 42" wide Hon heavy putty cabinets, two 4-drawer 42" wide putty cabinets, five 2-drawer 30" wide Hon putty file cabinets, my 72" wide Cherry Credenza, my big 72" wide cherry desk, my small computer cherry wood desk that is not attached, the two roll out drawers (desk is easy to move since I paid more to have the pieces that are not attached), two supply cabinets in a putty color, has me stressed out. I had thought I could empty the cabinets but not move the furniture and then replace everything at once when the cabinets are moved back. If I need to move everything out of here, I have a garage and a backyard with a patio to put the furniture on.

So I had other estimates when I just wanted the job done to see what should be done about my slab floor and a few others want to move everything out of here also but do one room at a time and glue down the floor with no sealer. One installer wants me to rent a POD to put all my furniture in until the job is done and that is my responsibility to move it in and out of the home.

Another installer wants to float the floor and had me go to his wholesaler to like other woods telling me he feels I should go with a 5" wide oak or pecan natural wood so one day when I move my furniture I do not have patches of light spaces but agrees that the Brazilian Cherry looked wonderful in my home office an my family room with the beige furniture and glass tables with putty legs. The natural oak or maple clashes with the tile I chose and the file cabinets. I need a little bit darker. Right now I have a beige rug that is darker than the natural wood and it is hard to keep clean. I actually like the Auburn Maple but everyone tells me it is too boring.

The other installer wants to float a laminate floor and tried steering me back to the Bruce Park Avenue Makore or Pradoo Laminate I was looking at. I wonder how sturdy this will be with all the furniture on top of the floor?

Then the installers at the store came back to me and want me to buy the more expensive floating Mirage Lock floor from the local store they work with (Mirage Lock comes in only maple or oak ... now the store's price is a lot more than the Internet price versus the other product was a good price) or the Mullican floating floor (sliced cut Brazilian Cherry rather than the sawn face cut of the BR-111 or the Hartco Valenza collection I was looking at) that I can get much cheaper on line but prefer to buy from a local dealer if I get a reasonable price.

They want to float the floor and say they can move the furniture a little at a time their old way and save me in installation despite the extra cost of the materials.

Hence, I had a tile guy here today and the other day for estimates. I want the damage out of the foyer areas NOW. It has been too long. I have engineered Bruce Oak very thin veneer glued down there that got damaged from the water leak from my central air conditioner/heating system failing a few months ago. The wood floor is discolored, warped and has buckled up. I was able to pull up a piece of this 18.5 year old floor that came up in veneered pieces of and the cement floor looked dry to me. So if I do Porcelain tile (going with Lowe's Rialto Beige 5 Rating tile) in the middle foyer by the utility room, garage, coat closet and bathroom in between the two home office rooms and in the front foyer, I can get rid of one decision. :)

I can choose a porcelain tile in the kitchen that will be easy to install since the linoleum floor can easily be pulled up.

Then the three rooms downstairs can have the 18.5 year old light beige always dirty carpet (I have to steam clean often and this water damage was the last straw for me despite how great the beige carpet looks in my home when it is clean) taken out and I can put the engineered hardwood floors there or the laminate. I have little dogs that I want to put puppy pads in trays down in the middle foyer when I am not home so I prefer a floor water proof there after seeing what water can do to a wood floor.

OK, this is long but I am stressed that the project is not getting done since everyone is trying to talk me out of the Brazilian Cherry floors telling me I will regret the decision if I move. I am open to anything that will work at this point.

I am open to suggestions. I even thought the Amendoim samples looked nice with my furniture but worry if it will be too knotty since I can't see a floor in person.

So should I float the floor with heavy furniture on top of it? Should I choose an easier locking floor? Would laminate look cheap in my professional home office that has clients visiting? Would it be best to seal the floor that I really feel is dry despite my townhouse being built on the wetlands since the glued down foyer engineered Bruce hardwood floors never came up in 18 years?

I just want this job done ASAP and I am tired of not knowing what to do.

Wish you lived near me since you seem to have knowledge and can do both the tile and hardwood/laminate flooring for me.

Sorry this is so long but I am trying to explain since maybe you can steer me in the right direction on how to handle my project to get this over with already.

I meant glass tables with cherry legs.... sorry kept getting interrupted by calls from clients...

OK, so now you know why the job is not done. If the installers would have just told the store owner what I needed in terms of glue, I would have had the job done. But now I am confused if I need to seal the floor first if I am to glue down the floor or is floating the floor OK with all my equipment and furniture. I do not want a problem in the future but I did have hardwood engineered floors here that never buckled up. Also do you recommend I go with the thicker hardwood floor rather than the 3/8th thick with the 3.125 MM wear layer on top by BR-111? Would it really be so bad if one day I sell my place and there are patches of light under my furniture that I will not be able to move around due to how heavy they re? I only get sun in front of my desk while the rest of my home office two rooms have no windows. My family room only had a wall of windows on one side but my sofa in 10.5 years has no faded and is still the same beige/taupe leather color. The installers all seem to try to push me away from Brazilian Cherry except for one installer. One wanted me to buy Lyptus Fire telling me it is stained and red like I want and will not change colors but I read on their site that it gets darker also. The Amendoim could be nice but I fell in love with the Brazilian Cherry color of the samples I have here that rivkadr sent me.

Villabacio..... Try contacting the NWFA. There is an artificial method to speed up color changes but I'm not up on the procedure myself. I'll put a link at the bottom.

Lynn2006, how about coping and pasting your reply into a new thread.... I'm jotting down some notes and will try to help you make an informed decision.

Here is a link that might be useful: NWFA - ask the expert

If you get the answer to how to artifically make lighter wood catch up, please post it prominently as a separate thread. I've only been on this forum a few weeks, but the matter comes up fairly often.

Anne from the Hilton called me back the other day an let me know that the floors were BR-11 (think she meant BR-111) Santos mahogany Solid Wood floors with the dance floor/buffet area in a 3" wide plank and the bar area in the 5" wide plank. The floors were not dark at all and were gorgeous but I can't understand how the floor can Be Santos since I thought Santos Mahogany was a much darker wood? I thought it did not change color much and started out darker. I was told the gorgeous floors with the beautiful interesting varied grain in the floors with only a little bit of contrast between the planks were 6 months old.

From what I have seen, Santos Mahogany, lightens with UV exposure.

floorguy, thank you for letting me know that Santos Mahogany lightens with UV exposure. The floors were gorgeous. Of course they were solid wood and maybe with all that overhead lighting the floors lightened? The wood grain was so varied and beautiful and the coloring was varied but subtle differences and I was wishing it was a less expensive wood I saw. I read on the BR-111 site that the degree of darkening was the same as Oak. Maybe Oak fades also in the sun so Santos Mahogany also does this?

Sometimes I feel I should forget my love of the exotic woods and go with a stained auburn Maple Mirage Lock floor that can be installed without glue over a floating pad. I just had my heart set on a floor with grain that was different than my years and years of Golden Oak furniture and some color in my life since I have lived with beige wall to wall carpet in my current townhouse and my former apartment for over 14 years.

A client that voted a few months ago for the Amendoim wood stopped by earlier in the evening after his job and saw my wood samples surrounding my two Rialto Beige Tiles that have the grout colors in the middle. I wanted to show the tile guy that the tile seemed to match various species of wood and show him the grout choice to verify that he felt it was a good choice.

My client told me he felt bad that no one was helping me get my tiles installed and felt that the tiles would look great and he liked the planks in front of the 2nd tile. He hoped the tile guy did not have another excuse later on and not show up.

I told him that was BR-111 Brazilian Cherry foot long planks in the 3.25" that someone on this site sent me and he was amazed that people could be so nice. He told me that it looked great with my tiles and great with my office furniture. I was surprised since he likes light wood. He told me after work, he will stop by to see the job the installer did and hopes I find someone to do my hardwood floors and to stop being afraid and just go for something I like.

Unfortunately when he comes by to drop off more paperwork Thursday, I have a feeling nothing will have changed since the tile guy never came by and I want my two foyer areas tiled before I install hardwood floors in the other three rooms.

I have a similar problem with my Brazilian cherry floor except it is darker under the area rugs. Any suggestions on how to even out the coloring? Thanks