Matt, My wife agrees with yours about the lack of normality. She doesn't like snakes at all, the other herps she's okay with. I think I've got my 2 yr. old son on my side. He seems to have already developed an interest in herps. But he and I have a hard time convincing her that we're normal. Thanks for your posts, always enjoy them. Evan

Our 4x4 trek yesterday. It said online it was a well maintained road...take a look...:0) We were heading into a bristle cone forrest. The oldest trees around...

Wood for what ? You need to wait until it arrives to see how it looks in your space with your lighting .

Just wanted to follow up with some feedback for anyone who ends up in a similar situation since the old threads helped me a lot. Tips for anyone looking for classic medium brown without any trendy gray tone: 1. The stain samples from the store are meaningless, make sure they sample all coats and the top coat finish on-site so you can see the final outcome with your lighting. (Also keep in mind Low-e windows throw colors.) The color we ended up going with didn’t match any of the four samples we had that were technically the same. 2. Online photos are meaningless. I’ll paste one below bc I scoured them too, but I have multiple photos at different angles and the color and undertones can look massively different. There is no substitute for in person samples. 3. Also take into account different wood cuts and species can affect colors. I thought we’d use probably use Provincial, but on our white oak it looked very one note/flat, and not at all like I have seen it in other settings. I’d definitely consider it again, especially on red oak, but in this house it didn’t give the look we expected. 4. Verify they use Duraseal or Bona if you want to use those brands before you get far down the road. There was a Bona combo I saw on a blog (nutmeg + Provincial) that looked great, but we couldn’t access that combo with our stainers and we were too far down the pipeline to consider finding someone who could/would. In the end, what worked best with our lighting and design plan was white oak in Early American (photo below even though the photo doesn’t really match the in person reality). Hope to move back in soon! Thanks again to everyone for your help and feedback.