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Building a Home Flooring

Hardwood floor color not right!

last year

The hardwood (engineered wide planked) floors installed in our new build do not match the color we picked out. This photo shows the sample we picked out (which is the bigger piece) with a smaller piece from the actual floor that was installed (the smaller piece) The floor color that was installed has a purple/red undertone to it.
Is this normal to have a variation in color like this? We did not want red or purple undertones! We just wanted a straight up brown.

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Comments (5)

kempek01
last year
Your sample is definitely brown, while the installed floor is almost purple!

Since this is a new build, are there any boxes of the flooring left in the dumpster so you can see what was installed?

Is this a custom build, or are you buying from a production builder?
Kelly Coburn
Original Author
last year
The smaller purple piece is a leftover scrap piece of the floor that was installed. We found it in the garage. It was supposed to look like the brown sample! The floor was stained before it was installed. We did not see it before they installed it we just assumed it would look like the sample. We live 4 hours away from where the house is being built so they installed the entire floor before we knew it looked purple! It’s an engineered hardwood. Yes it is a custom build home.
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chispa
last year
When you say the floor was stained before it was installed do you mean that it came:

1) stained from the factory or

2) you installed an unfinished engineered floor and it was stained on site?
elcieg
last year
last modified: last year
What is the brand of the floor, type of wood, color, etc? It looks like a rustic oak/mahogany finish.

I do see purple tones in both of your samples. You may have run into the same problem that folks have when they do not see the entire slab of granite and choose from a small sample.

Engineered wood is hardwood and has a grain and has natural tones which respond to stain differently.

I may be odd one out, but I like it and I think you can do a lot with it.

B.M. Pale Oak
chispa
last year
last modified: last year
Also is this a custom home on your lot OR a semi-custom home with a production builder who gave you limited choices and probably has an "or similar" clause in the contract.

I did a custom built and used a local flooring company to source my engineered wood floors. When I narrowed down my choices to 2 floors they ordered a full box of each and had the manufacturer hold the 4000 sq.ft we needed. I made my decision based on the sample box and we put a deposit on the 4000 sq.ft of that exact same lot number.

Yes, there can be quite wide variations between engineered wood lots and a good floor company/installer will make sure you get a sample box before making a final decision/order. Even more important these days with material shortages that can cause manufacturers to source raw materials from different vendors/sources than those they had normally used, so you end up with end products with wider variations than normal.

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