Despite not liking how dark my Brazilian Cherry floors became in my home office, I loved them so much in my family room so I have been so disappointed they were ruined in my flood recently. I have tried so many sample big boards from a local store and I am realizing that the wide board just does not look good in my home office and I do love my floors despite the color change. I am not back into deciding which exotic wood floor but in the 3.25" or 3.5" wide depending on which engineered width is being offered. All the really wide boards in other brands just do not look right in my home office with little floor showing to my eyes. Also if the boards are shorter and less wide, more of the light boards will be seen and I will see the mosaic of colors that I fell in love with almost 4 year ago when I installed my floors. Yes, they change color but no wood is perfect especially if one is stuck with engineered wood since I am on a slab floor and I have to make sure the wood looks good with my Putty file cabinets. Hope this helps others that despite the problems associated with Brazilian Cherry needing to be cleaned more often and darkening, I do love the exotic floors the way they dramatically make a room come alive if one can't have rugs in the room.

I think you might be referring to the Janka hardness scale, where walnut is not as hard as Oak. All wood is going to show some evidence of wear as the years go by. Some just faster than others. There are 100 yr old Pine floors that still look and function beautifully, even though Pine is considered a "soft" wood (and I'm not talking about Heart Pine, which is harder.) Really, it depends on what kind of look you want. Walnut is a darker wood and thus looks more formal. Oak can be stained light or dark (or not at all) and so can take on different cosmetic looks. Quarter-sawn White Oak looks quite different than flat sawn White Oak, again because of the different graining. Look up "Janka scale" in Google. And then I suggest you just keep researching Walnut flooring and Oak flooring and look at lots of samples. When you have it narrowed down to two, buy a box of each and lay them out in your room so you can see a larger area of each under the normal lighting in your house. It will be the best $$ you spend in trying to figure out which one is the "right" one for you. Since you're doing a floating floor, I would also keep in mind that you won't have the luxury of refinishing (most likey) so a harder wood such as Oak should theoretically hold up longer. Walnut is on the softer side. Also look at Brazilian Cherry or Brazilian Teak (Cumaru) for darker woods that are quite hard on the Janka scale. Hope that helps.

You have a ton of questions and I will do my best to address them, I also have AADD so if I start to ramble and jump back and forth just overlook that :). We need to simplify this more because there are certain issues you can't change..... being on a slab and the weight issues. Any slab has to be reasonably flat and dry, but in your case it needs to be almost dead flat and dry. We are supposed to always check slabs for vapor emissions that can go unoticed when there is carpet over top that allows the slab to breath and release moisture without any problems. You have an 18yr. old glued down wood floor that has exhibited no problems, in my view that is as good an indicator one is going to get..... so we'll just say you are dry. I don't know how many sq.ft. is involved but it takes some space for an installer to check the slab for flatness and then take measures to correct it. Sometimes a low spot can be a few feet in diameter and with the feathering needed I may need 6', 8' or more to deal with it. If I don't have space I could be featuring up to a high spot underneath furniture. It is best to try and figure a way to go one room a time, clean it out, then go on to the next room. If you have your heart set on an engineered BC, then get it :), life is too short to fret over that as long as you know about this issue and are okay with it. On glued down floors the thickness does not really matter as much as opposed to floating. What does matter is the top wear layer thickness and using the right adhesive. A 3mm or 4mm thick wear layer is actually better in the long run as a 5mm thick . Going too thick with the wear layer can cause a phenomenon called "dry cupping" .... the NWFA and NOFMA are aware of this and it is being addressed. If you go with a glued down engineered wood floor and want to put on a sealer as "insurance" , then do it. In your case I would strongly consider using Stauf 960 which is a quality sealer and adhesive combined in one application. You pay alot more for the adhesive but you only have one labor issue. Imo you could also go with a floating floor. But to pull this off you must use a quality product and (here I go again)..... the concrete must be flat. There is a laminate out there that I have personally installed that is almost bullet proof. That would be Wilsonart , which is a high pressure laminate referred to as an HPL. Putting that down along with using their blue fusion glue in the joinery can take any weight you want to put on top of it. When I do that I recommend to the client upgrading the underlayment to a product Sound Solutions. You cannot walk on this type of install and tell that it floats. You could also go with a floating engineered wood... this is where thickness comes into play. I prefer to use nothing less than a 1/2" in thickness and a where the joints get glued up, or, choose a good reliable click-lock system like the valinge or Uniclic joinery systems. They both hold together well. The wood should also be waht is called balanced.... the top layer equals the bottom. You are very typical of alot of my clients. Quit stressing so much :).

MY HORROR STORY!! Do not get any exotic floor from LL, they use inferior grades and they 1) cupped, 2) split and 3) buckled all within 6 months of installation. The installer got stuck with the re-do (complimentary) and he wants to install domestic woods only from this outfit (to whom I am still obliged if I want this re-do complimentary). Home, humidity, were not issues-- the product we believe is milled too quickly and without time for drying and curing. So stay away from Brazilian, teak and other imports. We are going with white oak and staining it.