aggietexan, if you send me pictures to my email address, I can set them up in one of the two photo sites I belong to that I have not used in a long time. I would add pictures and send the link here and clicking the link would allow the pictures to show. I do not know how to place pictures inside a post but I do know how to do links. I would love to see pictures. Just click my lynn2006 page and you will see a link to click my email. I am glad you are happy with your new floors. Do they have some red in them? I would love to see some close up of the knots since maybe they are tiny and will not bother me. I do love the pics of the Amendoim floors on the BR-111 website. How long have you had the floors? What color change can you see if you have a carpet on the floor?

onelady1dog2girls, Thank you for thinking of me. I did check out the website and that Sunset Glow Hickory sounds beautiful (and was pretty in the picture) but it is a solid wood only. I live in the preserved wetlands and my floor is concrete with no basement due to the area I live in. I have made up my mind that I only want a prefinished engineered wood floor. I also have 8 foot ceilings. I was not that crazy about the new version of the 5" wide Engineered wood flooring from Brazilian Direct despite really liking the company and Shannon. I loved their solid wood samples last year and I really loved their solid Kempas Samples. I wish they had engineered wood floors in a 3.25" width. A solid wood floor over a plywood floor will raise my floor up much higher than my tiled foyer floors and my kitchen floor and make my ceiling look lower in my living room and dining room (which both are my two room home office). My family room has a Cathedral ceiling so it could handle the floor being raised despite the kitchen floor lower but I think solid wood is not right for my type of concrete sub-floor. I preferred Brazilian Direct's engineered wood floor sample from last year despite a lesser veneer sawn layer on top. I just really feel I am leaning towards a floor no wider than 4" and preferably 3.25 to 3.5" wide to minimize cupping problems. I really like the finish on the BR-111 3.25" wide plank samples I have here that is not too glossy but has a drop of gloss. Despite the 3/8th being the same height as my new Porcelain Tiles, I just wish the planks were 1/2" thick with the same 3 MM wear layer. But then again, the semi-gloss finish on the Coswick Quartersawn Oak Engineered floors is nice also.

ok, this is an area where I actually know something! I sold and spec'ed hardwood for a custom shop before my mommy-life. The information you are getting here is correct. Engineered floors will give you 1-2 refinishings ON A PERFECT SUBFLOOR. One of the issues that sometimes arises if there are inconsistanies in the height of your subfloor. Because there is thinner wood wearlayer (before you get to the engineered wood) there is the chance that you can damage the floor irreparably when you sand it. Now I only saw this saw this happen twice, once on a loft job and once in an older home. The loft was more subtle as it was over concrete, the old house more obvious as they were DIYers and picked engineered flooring to try to negate their irregular subfloor (they neglected to tell us that that was why they chose engineered, we would have talked them out of it had we seen the floor first) Neither of their claims to the manufacturer were fully settled because both times they did not follow the guidelines for floor prep. The loft job was also a materials only job for us with their GC laying the floors but he insisted he knew what he was doing. A good engineered floor will not be cheaper than most of your nail down options because the production costs are higher. Now having said that, GOOD engineered floors certainly have their place in places where you can't put traditional hardwood due to height restrictions or concrete subfloors. My boss had a great engineered floor in his basement and it survived a flood remarkably well (it was ash, Kahrs brand out of Scandinavia and one of the beefier engineered floors and one of the pioneers) My Grandmother also had a Kahrs floor in her ground suite condo and she LOVED it and I was impressed by the milling. I'm considering it for our basement because it's warmer and less echo-y than laminate There has been a lot of 2nd rate engineered flooring coming out of China and being labeled for all sorts of different companies. You should be able to tell an engineered sample because the layers are sandwiched together and the tongue will be a different wood than the top (showing) layer. Distressed finishes are usually more expensive because of the extra step in manufacturing to make it distressed. That is different than just getting a lower grade of hardwood like a rustic or tavern grade (in solid hardwood). Those grades have more character but they often don't carry a warranty and generally have a higher waste percentage. Another thing to think about---if you ever have to replace part of the floor, you will always be able to replicate 3/4" thick hardwood but engineered floors are more like tile, they change and get discontinued over the years. You could go pre-finished, save the hassle of site finishing but with the thicker wear-layer a 3/4" nail down floor offers. Only you will know if you can handle beveling or not. The changes in milling the last 10 years are huge. The bevel in your better milled wood is tiny. I like Canadian mills, Model or Mirage for pre-finished. Remember that if you ever re-finish, the bevel will disappear and you will, essentially have a site finished floor. One benefit that many people don't know about? With a prefinished tongue and grooved floor you can have a good installer cut out a single board (or more) from your floor if it gets damaged which is why we did a fair bit of pre-finished in new homes since inevitably we would get call-backs at move in to repair trade damage (@#$%^ plumbers and their big wrenches!). Prefinished hardwood deals the best with shinkage and expansion issues because the finish is on individual boards. Site finished floors are more labor intensive but the materials are cheaper (apples to apples). They are what many people consider the gold standard however there are more steps and you don't always know how it's going to look until it's done. There is more chance of finish contamination and trade damage during the rest of the building process. We refinished 100 year old floors. I loved the idea that there wasn't 4 generations of carpet and crap in the landfill. Definitely a forever floor and it can usually be re-sanded for all but the very worst water damage (think entire house under water for a few days) If you are going with a wide plank, keep in mind your species and humidity level (and your ability to keep humidity stable). The wider the plank (with 3/4" thick flooring), the more obvious shrinking and expanding will be. If you take a 2" wide board and it shrinks 2%, it isn't very noticeable. If you take a 6" wide board and it shrinks 2% the gaping will be more noticeable and in the case of a site finished floor *could* pull your finish apart. You'll need to find a flooring contractor in your area with lots of experience. Most of the best hardwood shops ONLY do hardwood. Beware of carpet shops and many of the big box stores in many instances. Make sure they are accredited with the NWFA (national wood flooring association) http://www.nwfa.org/member/ good luck!

ci_lantro, thank you for your reply. Two of my rooms are combined as one big room with a half of a wall high and a half of a wall long so when you enter the room there appears to be a very long hall way (created from putty file cabinets against the wall and my L-Shape desk and other cabinets in the room and desks. So the longer boards may look great here but the other room is small so maybe the shorter boards would look better there. farmhousebound, thank you for letting me know that you chose the slimmer boards for the vintage look and for your high humidity. I get high humidity most summers but this summer there was not much of a problem due to my new air conditioner unit. I usually have to run my dehumidifier all the time in the summer but my new central air conditioner solved that problem. But I was told by the installers that the 3.25" is more stable if the humidity changes and is better if they are not sure how level my cement floor is under this carpet. Thanks again for replying. I will wait for others to reply. I would love a close up of 5" wide boards to see what the Brazilian Cherry grain will look like since most of my samples are 3.25" wide so the grain is fine and cut off but pretty like this also.