donnaj123, did you end up making a decision. My 3 1/4 Engineered Brazilian Cherry Floors from Triangulo have arrived. They are replacing the water damaged 5" wide engineered Brazilian Cherry floors from the same company but then they were being sold by BR-111 and installed in September 2009. My installer then put one 72" long board on top of another and the very long wide dark board really stuck out getting me upset. I decided I just prefer the less wide board for my townhouse and any short boards can be made long by putting a similar color on top. I will let you know how the floor install looks next week. My wood was delivered today and I was surprised on the box to see it only has a 30% sheen. I could not get any samples of the Indusparquet that was $1/sq ft more but I see now based on finally having time to look at their website and figure out how to use it that they have a Urethane sheen over their aluminum oxide wood so it will be shinier. I hope I made the right decision. If I want shinier, I can do that for my bedroom I guess. I thought they were the exact same product so why pay more. So far in the cartons from opening the sides, it looks like many of the boards are long but I will know on Wednesday next week. Matt is in style right now and shows less smudges but I still prefer more of a satin finish. But the wood is here and I get a lot of traffic in my home office during my tax season so maybe it is best to not have too much of a sheen here. I just wish I had gotten a sample but the insurance company was rushing me to get a contract signed.

I emailed my contact asking him for clarification on what he said vs. what's printed on the back of the sample. (see below) I don't know what all the little hash marks & such mean, but all in all I am satisfied with his answer to this and the many other questions I've asked. We will be moving forward on the job with this provider. We feel good about it. He's presented himself very professionally and I think we're going to be very pleased with the end result. I'll be sure to repost when it's all finished so y'all can see what we got. :) Thanks for the help! Here's what he had to say: "I was mistaken in that particular product as to the length size. The chocolate cherry is 12"-47" which is still a beautiful floor. The checker board look is caused by poor installation. When we install a floor we are very particular with how it is laid out to avoid what we call stair steps: ------I and H patterns ------I---------------I which makes the floor look "checker board". ------I I-------------I------------- -------I ------I---------------I Hope that helps,

Marti - we have floating engineered hardwood over slab. Can you get anyone to see of you have any old plumbing buried in the slab that is leaking? This is be of the things we did. We had floating engineer wood from Summitt Forest Products. It had a nice handscraped look and none believes me when I say they are engineered. They don't look site finished but do not look like Pergo either. We had it glued near transitions to tile etc. Looks like you are stuck in analysis paralysis. Consider delegating this decision to another person who will just research and get it done and then you can move on to other things. I found that in our remodel, DH and I needed to delegate to one another a few times to take a break and get some distance. Good luck!

Check Garrison. We put something else in our new place because the flooring we wanted(we wanted the same) was discontinued..new are by Armstrong(I think..not sure), but the veneer layer is/was twice as thick in Garrison's flooring. Ours is also mildly distressed. Not sure whether the picture will be helpful because even though ours is also mid range brown, it definitely has some red in it-I love it madly, but not everyone does( in their homes. Guests seem to love it too lol) Ours is also quite soft, since we chose walnut. I'm okay with few imperfections and mini scratches here and there, but again, lots of people aren't. I'm okay to the point I put in walnut again in the new place:) We don't abuse it too much, neither we baby it.