Wife wants to replace carpet in dining room with hardwood. I do framing and finish carpentry and am planning on this being a DIY project. I removed the carpet, painted the room and prepped the slab. To keep her busy I told her to go pick out a floor. She came home with two samples, one is scandian brazillian cherry (outlet store) and the other is thomasville jatoba (home depot)..can anyone tell me about the quality of these two brands or recommend a quality wood at a reasonable cost. Thanks for advise.

As long as it is engineered cross-ply flooring and you have properly tested the concrete for moisture vapors(vapors cannot be seen) then you should be goo to go.

Never put a solid over concrete!!!! You'll be sorry with a lighter wallet, later!!!

Fllorguy,
thanks for the response, judging from your post count I would assume that you have a little experience. (joking). As far as the issues you mentioned I am in good order. This is what I did, being unfamiliar with the brands my wife chose I decided to go by a couple of boxes (44 sq') went home and opened them up. Good uniform color throughout, nice clean tongues and grooves, and found no variation in the board widths. basically looks good. Even in various lengths over 80% of the boards were 4' and very few shorts.

I would like to pester you or someone with two more questions, In a 1/2" engineered wood what is considered an acceptable wear layer, also I sometimes see wood layed up to tile and the tile man will finish the threshold with a grout joint ( wouldn't consider doing this except where cut ends meet tile because of expansion) what do you think.

Try a color matched caulk to match the grout joint. It can even come sanded or not.