Gee, Lynn, that's tough. A lot of samples, and small. I'm inclined to think the lower left two that are light with little in the way of grain (I think that would be called something like select (little variation) and clear (little grain). Maybe that's the Sakura? Seems to pick up the lighter accent color of your desks and would keep the room light. Doesn't have a conflicting wood grain either. I like the Sakura in the pic with only two samples.

I'd sure love to know how I accidentaly get this screen to go 3x larger! I swear it's a different key combo every time.

Squirrel thank you for your opinion. I just shared the link with a friend and found out that Sakura is a Sakura Cherry and a soft wood so has only a Janka Rating of 995 so despite loving the color and teh way it looks, I guess I have to rule it out. I have been trying to say away from soft woods but since it has a 3 MM wear level on top and is 1/2" thick and is considered commercial engineered wood, I forgot to check the Janka Rating. I just scratched it and it is soft while the Maple does not show the stratch where I attempted to scratch it also. I wish the Maple would be a little less yellow.

Thanks for caring. It is so difficult to pick out a floor I am finding out.

lynn, I hope this message doesn't show up twice. I posted it, but it never registered. I think the third from the left up against the furniture, in numbers 9 and 10. In 14 I like the middle one.

I don't think you have enough samples. LOL You should go with the one that screamed at you immediately and continues to scream at you. Put the samples up for a couple of days then take them out again. If the same one keeps getting your attention, than that's the one for you. At least that has been my experience in making these kinds of decisions. Of course when I chose the Makore I didn't even have to think about it. It was so beautiful. Also, I don't worry about matching furniture to floors. I think the right floor can support all colors of wood furniture. When I say the right floor, I mean one that is not too far off the spectrum in either being too light and looking too modern, or too dark. I don't know if any furniture I acquire in my new house will match the floor, but I know the flooring is beautiful on its' own so it doesn't need anything to accent it. I know you've been agonizing over this flooring decision. I hope you can make a decision soon.

I like Amendom or Makore. I would want to get close but not too close to the color of the credenza, if that makes sense.

miller88, I replied to your post in the other thread. I was trying to post on the flooring site last night and accidentally posted on this site twice being that I was so tired.

I also liek both the Amendoim and the Makore since both are not too dark and compliment my credenza without being too close in color.

But I am surprising myself by also liking the Cabrueva despite how dark some of the samples are since it has light and dark in it that compliment my credenza.

Thyanks for your opinion that I value.

I am sorry about the typos but I spilled soda on my keyboard and it is acting up.

The white writing on the black keys on my 2.5 year old keyboard are difficult to see anyway since many have faded away so I will be getting a new keyboard soon. I have to start to proof read my posts before sending them. I am just so used to email and Word that both spell check to see the keyboard errors with my fingers since I am normally a good speller. I wish this site would have a spell checker or is there a way to add an "add-on" program to do this?

Lynn, it would be really helpful if you would put down just ONE of each color choice, in a straight line against the credenza, and then do the same against the putty cabinets, in the same order. Frankly, the samples keep getting moved and there are too many to really track which one is which. I think you will get more help that way.

I like the warmer, darker color , I think it was the third from the bottom in the 13th pix? Not sure now.

As for lighting, that is an issue you should resolve. Torchieres are not effective office lighting, and don't provide the full light for the space that you need. You need some track lighting mounted on the ceiling or something to give you the work light you need, without all the shadows.

Then you might want to look into a warmer color for the walls, so you aren't surrounded by the putty color everywhere.

I am also wondering if there isn't a way to rearrange the space to let the desk and credenza show more, and move some of the huge bank of filing cabinets so that they aren't so much to the forefront of the office space. Can you do a quick drawing to show us the whole room, or take some more pix all the way around so that we can see the doorway, window, etc.?

Thanks Les for your suggestions. I can't figure out which one you like but if it is on the bottom of the right side, it is Cabrueva. Can you look again and tell me exactly where it is located?

I just took so many more pics that later on I will choose the best ones that are not blurry to label by species of wood and share with you and others to help me better. Thanks for the great suggestions.

I do need better lighting in this room and had planned to install lights in the ceiling when I bought my home but the seller would not move out until my busy season started and then it never happened.

When I painted the walls, it was when I had a fear of color and now I am venturing more into color. :) The walls used to be white with no contrast between the ceiling and trim but now at least there is some contrast with the bright white on the ceiling and trim so there is some improvement and maybe the room can have a little bit of a warmer color on the wall if I had better lighting.

The big room is a living room/dining room combination with a half-wall in between it that I have my credenza in front of and in back of the half of wall high I have two 42" wide 2-drawer file cabinets to put my commercial printer on and more storage. In back of the supply cabinets I have my part-time employee's desk and computer to give her some privacy so I need that kind of set-up because I had problems working when we were looking at each other.

I also wish I could put the 5-drawer 42" wide lateral file cabinets upstairs but unfortunately they will not fit around the curved steps so I really should have only bought 4-drawer lateral 42" wide file cabinets so half of them could go upstairs.

I wish I had the money for a home with a walk out basement and a more space for my office but I do not but thank you for the suggestions.

I can't open my blinds all the way per the President of this complex so I have top down bottom up honey combs and I wish I went with the single honeycomb with a retractable cord rather than the double honeycomb (that blocks some of the light) with the long cords that keep tangling.

It is amazing that when I first started to look at wood floors I was looking into Maples and Hickory and Birch that were very light until I saw they did not look right in my office with the putty cabinets.

I am thinking of putting that beige porcelain ceramic tile (in few pics) in both foyers due to my dogs (I put puppy pads down in trays when I am at seminars are away for the day at a client) and to dirt and water coming from the outside and for future water damage if my hot water heater that is in the utility closet ever dies on me. I can then at least get going in removing the damaged engineered oak wood that is by the utility room and bathroom and coat closet that is in a small hallways in between the living room and dining room that is my office.

Others tell me to just put the wood or laminate everywhere and forget about the Porcelain Ceramic Tile. I will show more pics later on.

Thank you again.

Lynn, I almost forgot, I had changed your carpet color to a variety of shades so you could see something else in there. Also did a diagonal thing and one of the tiger wood from the photo Parma posted.

There are probably repeats, as it was hard to keep track : )

It would be nice if you could face the back of that one filing cabinet with something the color of your wood desks. So things aren't chopped up as much with the different types of pieces.

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Squirrel, Thank you so much! I thought my office would be dark if the floor was not very light but a darker floor like the orange rug you posted for me and the tiger wood floor really enhances my office, makes it not boring and look great with my furniture. Maybe I will discuss with my part-time employee who sits behind the supply cabinets when she is here if she and I can figure out antoher arrangement for the side of the office behind the credenza that is in front of the half a wall high and half of wall long area but I remember when we set up the office we could not figure out any other set up that allowed all drawers and doors to have room to open and be accessible to as well as block the family room without paying someone to install a door.

I really ilke the floor on an angle unless I just like having some color in my office environment.

When I post pics of the species of wood separate after I am doing typing my bills tonight, would you beable to put each of the 4 samples on my floor so I can see how it looks? I wonder what the floor wood look like if it was not angled? I am considering Cabrueva (= Santos Mahogany), Brazilian Cherry (= Jatoba), Amendoim, and Makore as my final choices for floors. I still adore the Tiger Wood but fear the black stripes will get too dark and too much. I love the grain in the tiger wood that is fine and not too busy and I love the coloring of it that is not as busy as that floor from the big samples I have seen. I am now excited for my floor to be other than beige. :) You are the best! Any suggestons for the walls? Maybe I need some pictures with color in them other than two calendars with maltese rescue dogs on them? Also seeing that orange floor, I wonder if I should be considering the Pradoo and maybe the Tiger Wood again after all.

Remember this is only a virtual, though, and the amount of light reflected will change with a darker floor. The floor space doesn't look all that open, though. Definitely put some more color around the room : )

Another accountant changed his beige rug to navy blue and then could not stand how dark his office became so installed overhead lighting. That was why at first I was afraid to put a darker richer floor down but it sure would be nice to get a little color in my office without making the walls too dark that could make my space seem darker and smaller since the room is not that wide and I would have more room if there was not that half of a wall high in the middle of the room.

Would you not want to put a rug runner down that aisle?

You are right Squirrel that if the floor turns out rich and a little bit darker than I would like, I can always add a lighter color rug runner.

I had tried some color on the wall, too. Just to see. This is a silver sage type color, spa-like, which is beautiful with the orange-toned woods. The ceiling's bright white. It would be nice if you could color/cover the back of that filing cabinet or whatever it is in the middle there. So it just blends into the floor and visually simplifies things a bit.

Probably not important to you, but maybe you could paint all those wall cabinets : ) Less clutter and visual stimulation would probably feel better in there, work-wise. The rich, warm woods are soothing.

Sigh. I'm so sad today. And they're killing squirrels over on the garden side.

OMG, sample insanity!

How about you pick 3 or 4 that you like best out of the different tonal groups and then ask for opinions. There are just too many jumbled together to get a real sense, and colors are altered on computer monitors anyway.
So, go from light to dark of your favorites and it will be easier for people to give you their opinion.

Before you do anything with the floor, I would change the lighting because that will make a HUGE difference.

Squirrel, I love the Silver Sage color on my walls and looks great with my furniture. My supply cabinets have doors on the front so I need to be able to open them. If I turn them around, I can not open them since there is a small desk and chair on the other side of them where my part-time employee sits. I wish I had another room to keep all the cabinets in. If I did not need a part-time employee, I would have the cabinets against the wall to pen the room up more.

Alex, you are right, I need better lighting.

Ok, I will try to label the pics I took before to make the samples less busy and easier to give opinions on. Alex, you made me laugh when you said OMG, sample insanity since I was beginning to feel so overwhelmed myself with so many samples.

OK, I renamed the best pics of each of the three wood species I chose and took pics by my file cabinet by the window, by my credenza that is in back of my desk and by the front of my desk which is by the front windows. I also took pics of the room that is a little messy right now since I am working on a major project and do not have time to clean if I am working as well as obsessing about which wood floor for my office. I was going to wait until the end of the year to change the carpet but then when my air conditoner/heating/compressor unit died on me and caused a flood in the foyer area between the two rooms that are part of that big room, I had to decide what to replace the engineered warped and darkened oak wood with. Pieces of the veneer have come up and it is bumpy and was smelling a muscky smell until I had carpet cleaners deodorize it and steam it lightly to get rid of the musky smell. I either have to replace it with wood or maybe I should put tile there and wood floors in the rest of the office?

The 80 pics are now about 23 or 24 pics labeled. Tomorrow I will reduce the number of pics and insert them into my picture program to share with you. I may start a new thread.

Lynn, I had been thinking about your flooring tests. Have you also tried resting the pieces in a small puddle? When the water goes under the floor, it wicks up (on mine) and causes damage. The last time, which was the worst damage, I think the problem was that a lot of the water had actually seeped along under the floor, not over top.

Squirrel, That is a good idea. I will have to try a puddle test later on today with some of my samples. I just figured any floor would be damaged with that much water with a solid hardwood doing the best but I can't have a solid wood floor on my cement floor.

I can imagine you felt overwhelmed LOL! I had to stop after the first group :)

I set up a separate post for the NEW pictures that I took and labled and then grouped by species but I am not getting any replies so I will post the link on the original post. Thank you.

Here is a link that might be useful: NEW PICS by Species & also pics of office room

Picture#21 Makore looks like it has a lot of red in it but there is no red in th Makore. The stripes in certain lights due to the gloss picking picking up the red colors nearby sometimes appears to have a red tint to it but that is all. It is a beautiful Laminate and looks so real but I just wish it has a little bit of red in it. Sorry about so many pics but half of them are the pics that Les suggested I post in the office and then I just posted several of each species to get an idea what the flooring looks likes in different parts of my office.

Squirrel - From 1 PM to 9.45 PM I placed a Park Avenue Laminate in a puddle of water on a plate and on another plate placed a 3/8th engineered wood with a 2 MM wear top and both are fine right now with neither one warping.

Lynn: I like the darker one against your desk, in pic #14 in the first set of pics. It's almost the same color as the front of your desk. Really nice.

Thank you Organic for letting me know that you like the darker sample which is very rich and does go so well with my desk.

I am starting to think a darker floor in a medium color may bring some life to my office.

That sample is very beautiful and I was blessed that the store let me bring home the bigger BR-111 samples for a few hours since none of the other stores would and that is why I bought samples that are just too small.

My other friend likes the middle sample.

Well at least I am narrowign down the selection. I am going to see if a local store will let me bring home some bigger samples. I wish someone with photoshoppping skills would find some time to put the Santos Mahogany on my floor, then the Amendoim on my floor and then the Brazilian Cherry on my floor. I seem to really love all three so much.

I wish I had the talent to photoshop so I could see how the floors look.

But you are right Organic, at least that rich beautiful sample goes nicely without clashing like others woods I brought home did. Thank you for your opinion.