Sprice, I just love your floors so much! I found the post where you first showed them off and I got to see more of your floors and home. I love your beautiful home. I wish more of the floor was showing. Thank you for sharing. I hope some others will share their exotic wood floors that are wide plank or even just 3.25" plank since I am trying to make up my mind now if the approximately $700.00 extra is worth paying for the wider and longer boards. The BR-111 Triangulo is 1/2" thick when it is 5" wide versus 3/8th" thick when it is 3.25" wide. Both have a nice wear layer on top that can be sanded 2 to 3 times with a 24 year warranty. Do the darker boards really stand out with the wider boards. One of my friends in Canada who I called tonight loves both widths but prefers widths no narrower than 3.25" and likes widths even up to 7" wide feeling more of the grain shows and the floor is less busy. My other friend who I called likes the 3.25" traditional look. I guess I will have to make my own decision but I hope I get to see some more pictures before ordering the floor. I wish I had some samples boards that were at least a foot long of the 5" wide planks. I only have the foot long sample boards of the 3.25" wide planks that someone on this forum mailed to me and I paid her for the postage. Is the 3.25" wide floor still in style and popular despite wider planks being very trendy right now?

From those on this kitchen forum, do you think that I should continue the Brazilian Cherry floors into the kitchen now that I have new appliances or will that not make the two small rooms look separate so I should do a pretty big tile or some other kind of floor? I like having the two rooms look like two separate rooms and I like how easy my Linoleum floor is to clean when I let my little dogs in and out the back kitchen sliding door but I am ready to change the 20 year old floor and update the kitchen. What color tile or other floor would look nice? I know there were a few kitchens I liked with big tiles. My friend is trying to push me to go with a tile look alike that is softer. I am thinking of going with dark Cherry kitchen doors hardware added unless I should just touch up the oak where it is worn and just change the counters? Any ideas of colors for the counters? I guess you should look at my new appliance post to answer these questions where I put the link below. Sorry about repeat posts but after I took so long to do one post, I was trying to copy and paste it to share to another forum on the GW forum for more responses. I am ready to continue the renovation of my kitchen and add framed pictures to the other rooms to finish them off. One day, I will change the TV to an LCD TV but for now, I want to work on the kitchen since the TV's screen is crystal clear and works so well. Here is a link that might be useful: Stainless Steel Appliances in my kitchen Link to help me continue to make changes with suggestions & ideas

Right, I've gone back and looked again at soapstone, and I now remember why I didn't give it much of a second glance: 1) we need a 3m slab or else need to have seams, and it doesn't come in pieces that big, and 2) it's too soft for us. We have 3 young children and an L-shaped overhang off of our island, which is a recipe for breakages with that particular material I think. I can just see someone accidentally slamming something down on the overhang bit or trying to swing on it or something and cracking off a section... Our family is hard on kitchen surfaces and I need something that's going to withstand a beating. It's also why we haven't gone with the single-sheet ceramic worktop (which I quite liked the look of as they're so thin and elegant and incredibly durable, but too thin for that overhang). Would rather not have multiple materials/heights there on the island (so, no L-shaped wood overhang on one corner, for example) as I find it too fussy and prefer to have one large big clean workspace for things like baking, making pizza, etc with the children. I absolutely love the kitchen of a friend of mine and it was my main inspiration pic. It's too dark for my space I think, but the island in particular is what I like. That's interesting about the German/Italian dynamic. I've been impressed by Italian ones in the past (I love a Varenna kitchen, just out of budget), but to be honest I met with about 3 different designers touting Italian kitchens when we were shopping earlier in the year, fully prepared to go Italian, and the ridiculousness of some of the form-over-function features we encountered (at a hefty price tag) really left an impression on me... it felt like they were being designed for people who like having large, beautiful kitchens but never actually cook. Features like hiding an already integrated fridge door behind another fairly cumbersome bigger door to create an 'ultra unkitchen', or keeping it 'clean' by only having a single pop-up island plug station to serve the whole bloody kitchen.... which looks great but HOW is that functional design for someone who, you know, actually cooks... or owns any appliances they use on a daily basis and don't want have to lug out of hiding every day... or maybe just drinks coffee from anything other than a French press? I digress. The annoyance is still there obviously, ha ha!! I'm sure they're not all like that, but a month or two of meetings had me running across the border to Germany!

It will be difficult to say what you will end up with. The video shows product that have been recently done. I don't know if anyone tried putting those samples in direct sunlight for 3 months to see if the bleached wood turns dark(er) again. As well, it will depend on your B. Cherry. Is it the flaming orange/red version or is it the pink/purple colour? I would guess the 'pinker' it looks today, the pinker it will look tomorrow. How do you feel about the water based finish verses the oil based finish? The water base is a step lighter than the oil based...which might be just enough to reduce the feeling of 'dark'.