All wood floors will dent . especially with high heels .

I have reclaimed oak floors milled from antique barn beams and joists. It is gorgeous, durable and naturally distressed. The look isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I don't worry about hurting it by walking on it, running the dog all over it, etc.

They are covered with construction dust in this pic, the color is darker and richer in real life:

idrive...this is beautiful!!!! I love the knots. Where did you buy this flooring?

I was thinking the handscraped antiquity look wouldn't be bothered much by dents and scrapes. I really don't want to have to baby it too much.

Beautiful Floor

I think your choice of a handcraped antique will be so nice. I tried looking for something like that, but when my husband picked ours, we thought it was beautiful, and would be great with all our other wood with the variety it has.
I have the BR-111 Amendiom, which is an exotic wood with color variety, and some knots. I'm sure it's still listed on Br111's website.
If I look at it sideways it scratches, and where there must be a slight dip in the floor, one board is cracking. I know it's probably an installation problem, not necessarily with the floor itself, and it took 1 1/2 years for it to crack. I think my foundation must have not been level and the flooring "professionals" didn't check first.

It's a beautiful floor, with just enough variety to not be boring, but it does bug me that it's got such a smooth, come scratch me finish.

Is that an engineered hardwood like mine, or is it a plank? I so would have gone with the plank if I had to do it again. Engineered wood (mine anyway) is just too delicate IMO.

The BR111 Antique Handscraped flooring is solid wood, not engineered.

I am also looking at their Design and Architectural series which is also handscraped...solid wood:

Fazenda and Colonist
I've just ordered samples of these two

Southernstitcher, Which engineered BR-111 Amendoim Floor did you go with (the Triangulo with the 3 MM wear layer or the thinner wear layer and which width?)? Did your installers float the floor or was it a glue down? Any pictures? How much darker did the floor get after 1.5 years? Does it have a reddish tint that I would like my floor to have but I am beginning to think it is not mandatory.

BR-111 is a nice floor. The only problems I have had with BR-111 is they don't mix color variations in each carton of flooring. It seems all one variation is in each carton, so it is best to open all the cartons and then label them what color variation it is, so you get a good mix and not a racing stripe floor.

Learning this the hard way, by opening the 6 cartons on the top of the acclimating stacks, to get started, thinking 6 cartons should give me a nice mix, as always, I work out of many cartons at once, well it just so happened those two cartons were only 2 of the 6 different color variations, throughout the 30 carton job. The next 3 cartons I opened to get into the mix, were totally different, then what I had just put down. Bummer!! BR-111 did agree and supplied enough flooring to do the repair, but I had to fix it all for free. Killing two days I had not prepared for. One to cull through the rest of the boxes, sorting colors, and the other doing the tear out and replacement. Cost about $1000 of my time and talent.

Thank you for the heads up floorguy. I am putting this note in my Wood Flooring File for when I get ready to lay the flooring.

Do you mind me asking which floor you got and how well is it wearing?

Floorguy, thanks for letting me know this in case I buy BR-111 Triangulo Engineered Wood and hire someone to install it. I will let them know about this. I am so sorry that you had to lose time finding this out. I find that at my job, I also have to eat a lot of hours if I am learning about something new or had no idea it would take as long as it did and I never warned the client. BR-111 should have a note about this on their boxes.

I am leaning towards the Brazilian Cherry despite the color change and my fear of it getting too dark but the coloring goes so well in all three of my rooms and I like the grain on it that is pretty and nothing like the rotary peel oak floor that I had in my home in the foyer areas (Bruce Glencove) that I have since replaced with Porcelain Tile.

I also am looking at the Mirage Lock floors and seem to like the Maple Auburn and the Red Oak Auburn. I am finding out that a sawn cut using oak flooring is beautiful and nothing like the rotary peel oak veneer that I had an exaggerated grain that I had on the floor for many years.

So I received the BR 111 samples today and decided to do my own little remodelzombie hardness testing. I took the end of my house key, holding it in my fist and rammed it into the wood like I was hammering a nail...9 or 10 times...and they probably pay people thousands of dollars to do these types of tests!

The prefinished solid Aluminum oxide finished Cognac Angelim handscraped Antiquity has 10 obvious holes in the wood and the top "varnish" layer appears white punctured and slightly lifted where the end of the key knocked through, not a good look on a darker stained floor like this.

The Colonist Engineered Brazilian Walnut....was very hard to dent. I actually performed my tesing twice on this piece to get some real results...I wanted some serious damage! If I look from the side (which means I'd have to be down on my hands and knees with my head on the floor if it were laid) I can see small dents (much much smaller dents than on the Cognac Angelim sample, and I used the same key)....but the color is unchanged...almost unnoticeable! I showed my husband and we were both amazed.

The Colonist Engineered Brazilian Walnut was the obvious winner hands down.

Thank you remodelzombie for letting us know that the Colonise Engineered Brazilian Walnut really is a sturdy floor. Please pics when you are done installing.

We have just built a new house and haven't moved in yet. We just got our wood floors installed. They are Asian walnut hand scraped 5' wide planks. I love them but I can't tell you how they wear because we haven't moved in yet. We hope to next week. We have them on the main floor except in the kitchen and down the hall to the laundry room. This is my first time on here and I will try to post a picture.

Suzy would love to see a picture of your wood flooring. Are they BR 111? If not, what are they?

Lynn yes that is the picture..though I have to say I'm a little worried because the actual sample piece that they sent me has uniform (not random) sawn lines that may actually be a little "stripy" looking on the floor. This is one of their new floorings and I can't find anyone that has a display to look at this.

I'm also looking at Mullican colonial walnut and Garrison carolina classic. I have plenty of time and am putting wood flooring in a large portion of my home, so want to make the right decision.

Dealers are telling me that for distressed and hand scraped flooring, I shouldn't waste my money on solid woods because once you sand it down, you'll lose that distressed/handscraped look. Makes sense....any comments on this?

I don't know how to upload pictures on here so I am going to try to email them to you. I hope it works!!

I think I got it now. Here are some pics of our hardwood floors. They are still dusty from installation. Haven't cleaned them yet.
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Suszy2009, What brand is your gorgeous flooring and where did you buy this Asian Handscraped Walnut. I love the variation in the colors and the overall look. Please post pics when there is furniture in the room.

Thank you for sharing.

Beautiful flooring Suzy. yes, what brand is this? Thank you for your pics!

We purchased a custom order exotic wood from BR111 and the installers had to throw out 40% of the wood because of splits defects and severely dotted planks. I spent hours of my own time going through the discard pile just so I could find a few pieces that were acceptable to use in our closets. Don't buy wood from BR111

BR-111 is no longer the same as they now sell direct and are no longer buying their wood from Triangulo and another good company. I lost so much money ordering T-Moldings from them and they came damaged the first time, the 2nd time damaged and not the right species. I had no time to call them as my dog died and I was grieving. They had a class action suit against them and BR111 lost.

I am bumping up this thread so others are warned!

Please if I can offer any advice, please do NOT buy from BR111. Their wood split in multiple places within 2 months of install. Please read reviews!! Just do a simple google search and you will see a tremendous number of negative experiences. Let our mistake be a lesson.

This post was edited by milar on Wed, May 21, 14 at 22:30

Hey Everyone, I'm Rachel from BR-111. We have a new African collection that is an absolute must have! Come by our new location at 1 NE 40th ST STE#2 Miami, FL 33137 and come see it for yourself, or give us a call at
(800)525-2711

Here is a link that might be useful: BR-111 Facebook page

Please everyone, do read the BBB site for Br-111's ratings. We had a poor experience from them where we received defective flooring and did not receive a promised refund for the material we purchased. I would caution buyers to shop with this company.

We were "set" on Tigerwood and then visited the home of Dan Cosgrove who owns Brazilian Direct (brazilianhardwood.com). He had Brazilian Teak in his home and we were just floored (pun intended). And the results speak for themselves.

Please note, our unfortunate experience with Br-111 just happened this past year 2013-current. We purchased expensive custom made wide plank engineered wood and paid over $12 sq ft from the current BR-111 (direct). At first, they tried to blame the problems on the wood being exotic, but after sending a video of the cracking that occurred on 100 % of the floor, they agreed it was a manufacturer defect and promised a full refund. This was back in January. It's now May and no refund. Very sad that the owner(s) of this company value money more than integrity. In life, I have witnessed what goes around comes around, and the individuals who have made the decision to withhold money will pay this money out one way or another. Perhaps not to myself, or yourself or even all at once, but rest be assured that any time dishonest money is earned, it washes out like water. It seems heartless that these people with families of their own (who happen to post all their wonderful Facebook events and news) do not have compassion on the customers who like them, only want the best for their families. We were planning on donating the refund to charity if we received it. Both my husband and I both agreed it would be right to do, so now they have not stolen money from a customer, they have stolen it from those who could have used it much more than us. Shame is just not powerful enough a word to put on this company.

Please read this discussion for further knowledge on buying exotic hardwood:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/flooring/msg0513405022114.html?1415