Cancork floor - thank you very much for your detailed reply. I appreciate it so much.

I have a follow up question: how to deal with the fact that the old boards have A LOT of variation in color, whereas the new boards are all very uniform. The GC's idea was to randomly stain a few new boards here and there, but now based on what you're saying that is a bad idea? So the new patches will always stand out because they are so uniform compared to the old areas?

Thank you so much.

Repairs such as this with an exotic specie can be difficult, as cancork has explained. Even repairs to domestic species can be problematic. New and old wood are different...they each came from different forests and have 'aged' under different conditions and length of time.

Coloring new boards into existing requires coloring media (stain or other) that in the short term will mask the color difference a little. The bleeding of stain into existing boards should not happen if a stain is applied that does not bleed and it is applied skillfully.

I am quite sure there is a way to hasten board color change by exposing photosensitive wood to intense light sources..the sun can do that pretty quickly.

The darkening under where the rug sat could very well have been to what cancork suggests.

Again, you have an exotic hardwood that is photosensitive that has strong character. Your patch in the same material has not darkened and it does not appear to have the same character or movement. This is the hardest part of exotics.

You can ask the GC/independent flooring installer to look for a different grade (a slightly lower grade could offer more colour variation...or it could have more defects...it is hard to tell with exotic imports). Or you could live with it for a few years and then decide.

Again....the *best option to get this to look as normal/natural as possible is to sand ALL of the floors down (the one's with the patches) and cover everything evenly with a continuous finish.

The decision is yours. Again...she who asks for it pays for it. If you want a different grade that was specified, you will have to pay for another form of wood to be sourced and brought in.

The staining of random boards is a VERY tough thing to pull off. So tough that only the HIGHEST PAID hardwood flooring professionals will even try. And those are the professionals that GCs NEVER hire (too expensive).

I would look at my finances and then look to see if another grade of Jatoba (one with more movement) can be sourced. Find out the extra cost. Bring it in (buy it). Buy 20% more than you need so that random colours can be selected for the install.

Remove the stuff that is there, install the new planks, sand and refinish EVERYTHING. And when doing this, please higher a well respected, independent flooring installer. The GC is probably good at a few things....flooring isn't one of them....especially an exotic like Jatoba.

Was the whole floor refinished? I didn't discern that from the story.

You could put it under some tanning lamps. I've seen that done with somebody trying to sell a home with Brazilian Cherry. With furniture in the same spot for years it becomes a polka dot floor when empty.

Good grief ... it looks like they swabbed stain onto the new boards without masking off the old boards.

Jatoba or not, they screwed up.

The refinisher and GC were here this morning. Floor people said there is only one grade of Jatoba available, and whatever they get sent is what they have to use. They can't ask for an order with more movement or grain etc. They said Jatoba is not milled anymore and is hard to get.

The samples that they made up for me before the project started are an exact match for my old floors. But when I asked why the new boards don't look the same, they said the sample boards were 15 year old boards that were laying around the shop. They said all new Jatoba is more smooth, less grain and movement and also more consistent color. Which is not what my old boards are like at all.

Can anyone confirm if this is true that we can no longer get our hands on different grades of Jatoba and that it doesn't look like the wood that used to be sold 15 years ago?

jfcwood- to answer your question, the floor in the pictures hasn't been sanded down. It was screened only and then coats of poly applied. The lower level room HAS been all sanded down, but the patches are still obvious on that level.

Thank you all so much so far, your help is really appreciated.

jatoba is most certainly still milled today. they are feeding you lies.

All I have to add here is the product in the width, grain and color variation you need will be difficult to find and obtain. However, a professional would have an easier time obtaining acceptable product than someone not knowing where to look.

Good luck.

Correct me if I'm wrong but what your have here appears to be a patch job. There's two issues I see that should have been addressed before commencing.

1) It's not reasonable to expect brand new Jatoba to look like aged Jatoba. One can stain the new boards but it's still going to look different. Staining the new boards will make them darker but it will make them more uniform and the grain may look different.

2) It's not reasonable to expect a patch job to not look like a patch job.

That said, the patch job would have looked a lot better had the ends been done more carefully. I'm not sure whether they sanded over on to the old boards or whether the stain soaked into the finish causing the issue. Even if the ends had been done better you'd still have a patch job.

If I were asked to do what your floor man has been asked to do, first I would issue a strong warning about the pitfalls and advise you to refinish the entire floor. I would price both options. That way, when I was asked to do an almost impossible task, you wouldn't have unrealistic expectations. At this point you need to contract a floor finisher to refinish the entire floor. After the the first coat of clear is applied, I would tape off the new boards and apply a coat of tinted finish. If it's too uniform at that point, I could tape off a few boards and apply tinted finish to add some variety, then apply the final two coats. I've used this strategy countless times on Oak, Jatoba and old Pine that's prevalent here, but even then it could still be evident that you've patched the floor.

As to the wood grade, it's much harder to get Jatoba than it was before the recession. My regular go-to supplier in Orlando used to stock 2-1/4", 3", 4" and 5". Not they stock only 5". Another supplier on Miami stocks different widths but it's a lower grade. To my knowledge Jatoba is unlike Oak where manufacturers have agreed on what constitutes a specific grade of wood so buyers are somewhat at the mercy of the person saying it's clear, select, etc.

I think your floor can be salvaged but will require refinishing. Is there a doorway near the patched area where the refinishing could stop, preferably at a doorway where the floor boards run parallel to the doorway? That would be a good stopping point.