Which wood would woo you?

You know me, solid oak gunstock.

Can't say I know much about gunstock but white oak was a contender until this morning. It lost to walnut.

I like the kind of greeny-browns over the yellowy-browns.

We were browsing at Lowes the other day and picked out several we liked. In many cases, the real wood was cheaper than the engineered lookalike. I found that odd.

I'd say that is a wise choice on your part.

Walnut is a closed-grained wood, and although that makes it harder to finish, it will repel dirt and moisture more effectively, and will last longer. Oak has broach swathes of soft, open-grained wood, which soak up any type of finishing material (varnish, lacquer, poly-eurethane, etc.), and leave an uneven surface between the closed-grained portions on which the finish largely sits rather than soaks in, and the open grained portions into which the finishing material soaked, and which traps dirt and moisture.

For a floor, i think you made the best choice in settling on walnut.

For an outside deck, teak is a good choice because the tree from which it comes lives in a wet environment, and it has no natural parasites in North America. For indoor applications, though, i'd go with walnut every time, despite the expense.

Interesting, Setanta. Thank you!

Okay then. Maybe I can now narrow it down between walnut and ipe (Brazillian walnut).

I like ipe (Tabebuia impetiginosa) a lot for decks; you can find it from sources where it is sustainably harvested; it's very dense and spans joists exceptionally far, and is quite beautiful - but I've no idea about its pros and cons re house flooring.

Ipe (it's not a walnut)

We have a dark cherry. It's beautiful and unusual, I suppose. The compliments haven't stopped coming in seven years altho I still haven't found a comfortable way to clean/mop it.

I don't know much about the trees themselves but ipe is another name for Brazillian walnut in the flooring buisness to distinguish it from American walnut.

Perhaps it's growing popularity as flooring here in Oregon has to do with it's weather resistence that makes it popular for decks elsewhere.

I think I'm tossing out tigerwood for being a bit too orange.

I still like the santos (mahogany) though.

It ain't walnut...

anyway, you might have seen this already: http://www.ipe-wood.com/faq.html

Walnut is one of a few woods that actually Lighten with age , so be prepared to check the colr scheme and do not get any wood that has any sapwood showing, this is soft and can check (split) quite easily. I dont know anything about ipe or its relationship to our Walnut. Are you having it Tounge and grooved?

Our floors are about 200 + years old. Weve had them sanded and renailed about 20 years ago. They have darkened to a less purple shade of walnut.
The kids used to play hockey on the floors and no problems or scratches that couldnt be polished out.

If Id have to do it all over again, Id choose a figured maple or quarter-sawn oak. I love the tiger eye-chatoyancy of certain cuts of wood.

There is a place in LAncaster County (Pa) called "Rick's Ancient Woods". This guy dives in the Susquehanna and rescues the old native Pine logs that are still down there by the cubic mile. Pastripped out its virgin forest in the mid 1800's and used to "raft" the logs down to The sawmills along Conowingo (at the line of waterfalls). These pine logs often sank as entire 20 ft or more logs, 6 and 8 feet in diameter. Over the century, theyve taken on a grey and deep red patination as replacement for the grain. The low oxygen prevented rot and the logs, once sprayed with glycol and slowly dried, are sawn for floorboards. They are probably some of the most expensive woods around but the grey against the red maroon is magnificent. AND, its not like white pine, its a form of yellow (hard ) pine that they still use for floors down south.


On second thought, walnut needs som lightness as a pattern or a parquet. How about doin the random width walnut in the center and most of the room and then put a ring of thin width maple along the edge of the room?

DIFFERENT WOODS

I found the best photos here. The closest to mine is the Purpleheart.

Oh I do love cherry, eoe.

I tried and tried to make it work in here but it just didn't work as well as the others. We've picked out this greenish-brown slate for the wet areas of the floor and the various rooms are painted either green or brown. The cherry just seemed to compete with everything.

I don't know thought..... maybe I ought to take a second look.

I was so insistant and could of course be wrong, so I looked further. Turns out walnut is in the Juglandia family and ipe is in the Bignonia family.

But the floor folks are right in that Brazilian walnut is a 'common name'.

Boomerang, with the wallcoloring that you've described, I wouldn't go with the cherry either. I'd stick with yellow-based woods.

If/when I replace/upgrade flooring here, I'm going to go to cork. It's part of my think globally/act locally project.

I've seen some amazing effects - and it feels so dang good on your feet (and it's nice and easy on your ankles/knees/hips).

Maple is the only one that Mr. B said "no" about. For whatever reason he just doesn't like it.

It sounds like you don't think walnut is such a great choice, farmerman. Hmmmm......

That's a great link, eoe, thanks. It had a wood on there that I'd been looking for. Mr. B is supposed to bring home a piece of it today for me to get a real look at. I like it a lot on that site and might just add it to my list:

Cumaru (Brazillian Teak)

I'll bet your floors are gorgeous!

Go with the ipe. Hard, strong, pretty, and not really expensive.

Go with the ipe. Hard, strong, pretty, and not really expensive.

I like maple, but oak and maple are bad about changing dimensions with moisture content.