I don't know the official name of the site, but there is a flooring council which has a list of all wood flooring starting from softest to hardest. They also describe the different grades of flooring. Be certain to state the grade of floor, if available, on your quote and know what to look for when the flooring arrives so you can check it before installation. Grade includes details about how much grain pattern or knots and what lengths the boards will be. The wood should sit in your home for about a week to acclimate before being installed.

Sky

I went with Brazilian Cherry Light from Lumber Liquidators throughout most of my house. It does scratch. I do take some precautions with it. I think their website has information of the hardness of woods.

I had a dark oak floors in my previous house. They were great. No precautions needed except pads on legs. I am told oak is one of the harder ones.

We have the Brazilian Teak and love it. It's very hard and holds up well to dings and scratches. Just be aware, all wood is going to dent if you drop something big. They aren't bulletproof but some do show wear faster than others. The finish is also important to protect the floor. The website I linked below has a little information and I swear I saw a thread a while back with some great info. I'll post it if I can find it.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Hardwood floor facts

Hmm, that's interesting that jerseygirl commented about the Brazilian Cherry floors scratching but that she didn't need to take any precautions with her oak floors. I believe Brazilian Cherry is harder than oak. I have B. Cherry and I love how it looks, but it shows every speck of lint or dust. I also have Asian Walnut floors too, which I love.

We had a conversation about this over on Building. I have Brazilian Walnut in a small area of our bonus room. Despite it being one of the hardest woods, it already has scratches after only a few months. The consensus was the scratches were in the surface of the finish and not the actual wood. Plus, it's a dark, dark color and that shows more scratches and dust. My teak doesn't show much at all unless you get down on your hands and knees and really search for scratches. That was my point above. All wood is going to scratch some, it's part of the character of the floor. Some just shows more than others depending on the color and finishing products used.

Those are beautiful Lindybarts!

We also have oak floors (medium in color). I do not know without looking at the paperwork the grade. I agree that we do not take any special precautions other than pads on furniture. Ours do have a protective finish, although it is more a matte finish. We have had a couple of spills, which just wipe right up, and only one *ding*, and that was me. I dropped a HEAVY iron little statue thingy and made a small ding. We should be able to sand it out and touch it up, but thankfully where it is and since it is small, it is not noticeable so we haven't tried to fix it.

I don't have a problem with scratching. I do have a dog, but a small dog (less than 10 lbs.), so that's probably not an issue.

We love the floors so much that we are probably going to take up the carpet in the two extra bedrooms and do hardwood in there too.

tina

Thanks for posting a photo Lindybarts. I love the look of your flooring! Does your flooring make your interior seem dark at all? Our house is only about 2100sq ft.(not counting a finished basement) so we don't want it to feel smaller. That's why DH doesn't want too dark of a floor. But I think the Brazilian Teak would complement our furniture.

Does it have much of a "groove"(don't know the term)between each board. The oak flooring in our kitchen has grooves and in hindsight, we shouldn't have picked it especially for a kitchen where you have food/dirt that gets trapped in between. Is it true that all prefinished floors come that way? We bought ours prefinished. Anyway, we want flooring that doesn't have grooves.

Does anyone know what type of finish is best to minimize the nicks?

No grooves! Each board is butted up tightly against the other. I don't think the floor makes the house feel dark at all. There are at least 2 or 3 other Garden Webbers with Teak floors, maybe they'll chime in. Or try searching for Teak as there have been some photos posted in recent months.

The finish we have is a Sweedish finish called Glitsa. I think the Satin is the one they used.

Here is a link that might be useful: Glitsa

Here is the site I mentioned above - find out how the grading system works and if applicable, have written what grade you are having installed.

Here is a link that might be useful: nofma organization

tinam61 - Do you have a picture of your oak floors?

Laurie

I actually got a lot of info from the flooring forum on this site. It doesn't get a ton of traffic but there are board 'experts' who chime in. Here's a picture of my floor. We used Brazilian Walnut (Ipe)

jyyanks,
How do you like the brazilian walnut and how is it holding up to normal wear/tear?

From reading more about flooring, I guess ideally we'd like a square edged but could live with "micro-beveled". We truly want to stay away from the bevel edges like we have in our kitchen. The Brazilian walnut also looks seamless. Does it come any lighter?

jyyanks - That's beautiful! I would love dark floors like that, but I've heard the dark colors show dirt/dust easier and I don't always clean as often as I should. Can you tell me what wallcolor you used?

Laurie

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.

Ipe is *dreamy*, once it's installed. We had it in our screened porch in our last house, because it's naturally durable outside because of its high oil content. It's so dense that it needs to be pre-drilled rather than just screwed into, or the boards will crack--I saw it happen when workers tried to take shortcuts. But I fully believe that that ipe floor sold our house :) I'd LOVE it inside a house all the way through. Can't get much more durable than that.

Is Ipe the brand?

Laurie

I think IPE is what the lumber is called and manufacturers/exporters re-name it for commercial purposes. Here's a link about IPE if you want to know more about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: about ipe