We just purchased an unfinished engineered Brazilian Cherry floor by Owens. We started to have it installed but have stopped installation becuase there's such wide variance of color to the boards. We know that it's a natural wood product and there will be some color variation and we like that but what we have right now seems to be extreme. We have some very dark boards to very light boards and everything in between. My husband says it looks like a collage! I say it's a calico cat!!

(The installer dampened a rag with mineral spirits and wiped several locations of the floor so we would be able to get an idea of what it will look like once it's finished.)

I know BC will darken over time but my questions are:

As it ages will these color variations even out and become less noticable?

If we were to stain the floor, does this halt the oxidation process and keep it from darkening?

We were even thinking about maybe just staining the lightest boards to get them into the medium range of what we have and hope they blend in a little better. My installer says he has never seen an unfinished BC that in it's unfinished state was this light in color. He also says he's never seen such a dramatic variance in the color range either.

Help!!

I was told at the convention by an importer that more of it is coming from points further north with more color variance and lighter than what we were used to.

Very interesting........especially since I put my order in last June and the Manufacturer lost their supplier and I didn't get it untill March of this year!! The sample boards I had were from last June too!

Thanks Marco!

Could be a select grade too. I believe that's the only grade they offer in BC.

I can't believe a "select" grade would have this much color variation - it looks much more like a common. The sample boards we were given to take home and seal were much more uniform in color and we were told that they were representive of what the product was and there would be subtle to moderate variation of color. This is not the case.

I did a lot of research before making a decision on a purchase and from what I understand "select" is a step below "clear" - with "clear" being more uniform in color and select being close to clear but with just a bit more color variation. Ours wouldn't even fall into the moderate category - it would be considered extreme color variation.

Thanks for the input Ken.

We also ordered engineered Select Brazilian Cherry floor by Owens.
We have to order about 16% extra to cover the unacceptable boards.
We tried to get them to cover it but it seems their acceptable standard covers everything we received.

The sap wood from the outside of the tree will be light compared to the heartwood. If you save the sap wood separately, you could use it in another area and stain to match the color of the heartwood, now.