Our main floor has Brazilian Teak and was just installed last week. It will be site finished sometime around the end of June. Dh and I decided to add a small area of hardwood around our Bonus Room wet bar. The builder agreed but sent us to pick out some prefinished wood. In the showroom I found some prefinished teak that would be fine but my eye caught some gorgeous Brazilian Walnut also known as Ipe. It was very rich looking and the salesman said it was one of the hardest woods around. Just wanted to see if anyone had this in their homes. I guess it's often used for decking too. Here's a picture of it from Kentwood's website:

clg - That's the one place online I found that had the double rounded first step in cumaru! I'm worried about the matching of the wood, and the quality. I didn't see any online reviews of the company. Do you (or anyone) have any experience with them? Mairin - Funny - I've been following your progress (and lusting after your potential countertops!) as we seem to have a similar style. I can't wait to see your pictures! Please share when you can! We considered iron balusters too, but a stairman mentioned that our stair area is rather small and they may not look good there. That lead us to wood. Raehelen - wow - your registers look great! You'd never know it's not the same wood. My concern is that the step is 5" wide so if it's a little off, there's a lot of space to notice it. (And I'm not sure if my floor guy is as good as yours!) We've already contracted for all wood stairs, including risers, the "catch" is it was presented as "in your choice of any wood we carry". We didn't realize they didn't carry the steps we need in all the flooring woods. We could try and take the stairs out of the contract price, but I really have the same issue either way. Even if I order the stair parts on line myself, and have someone else install (I'm a diy'er, but more on the painting level!) I'm still unsure the floor would match the stairs. My biggest issue is the first step. This step is right inside the front door - literally 6 feet from the door, so it's really visible. There are railings in both the kitchen and the stairway that need to match, but I am a little more comfortable trying to stain a different wood to match those. Has anyone done all wood steps in a different wood and tried to match the stain?

I see that they say that, washing it down and all I dont do it. Yup thats all there is to it for me anyway. The idea with the wash, some folks recemond an oxalic acid wash, is to dry out the ipe so it will take finish better. I have found it better to put one coat on right away then let the ipe dry out on its own then start building coats. I tried the acid wash and the wet on wet and found it dosent last any longer that way. I dont understand Folks saying ipe wont take finish, put some twp116 on a scrap and then try to get it off. J

The price of teak and cumaru are miles apart,cumaru is far less stable. If money is no problem go teak for both parts. The only way both areas are going to look the same is both areas are the same material. John