Just had the last pieces of ours laid last week! I love it, and our installer loved it, too! Ours is the solid Jatoba Brazilian Cherry. When I get a teen-ager home from school this afternoon, I'll try to post a pic (need techno-help!)

This was a replacement floor after we had to tear up a beautiful, but poorly installed Columbia floor. (Different installer!) Amazing how much wood can warp when there's moisture!!

I'll be interested to hear others experiences with the BR-111...and hope they're all positive!! Good luck!

Kathy

I installed about 700sq ft of their 5/16" solid santos mahogany, they came out nice, but they are kinda thin so some area will make creaking noise, will I was told its normal for hardwood floor from ANY company (could be just my lousy install?), I wish I'd found out before I bought them. they were cheap at lowes at 20% off, I think they were $4.79/sqft If I could do it again, I would still go with BR-111, but will go with their 3/4" thick santos mahogany. I had very little waste from my job, not sure if they will hold up thou, since I've just installed them in July. They do come with a 24yr warranty on the finish.

I have BR-111 Brazilian Cherry installed (Triangulo line). We LOVE it.

A not very good picture of it is here. I keep meaning to take more pictures, but I keep forgetting...kind of embarassing having everyone see our unmade bed.

I personally would recommend going with the thicker line, like ours (Triangulo), rather than the 5/16. We got samples of both when we were trying to decide, and the difference in veneer thickness was so clear. The 5/16 veneer is so thin, it seemed like you could scratch it and see the plywood underneath (okay, that's stretching it, but seriously, it's really thin).

We installed 1000 sq feet ourselves, over several months. It was difficult as far as time, but not difficult as far as ability, once you get the hang of it. We did a floating install.

Let me clarify that I'm talking about the 5/16" engineered, by the way.

BR-111 is a nice floor. You have to keep a handle on the color hue and variations. Each carton can be a different variation. Mix it good, to get a pleasing rack.

rivkadr, i love your floors! That's the exact one i'm thinking about purchasing. We will also be floating. Can I ask if it feels solid when you walk on it or does it feel floated? That's my biggst concern.

rivkadr: Nice floor, certainly makes up for the unmade bed :-) You mentioned you have the Triangulo line. What's the difference between that and the 3/4" indusparquet solid?

KON:

Triangulo is engineered, used predominantly for concrete subfloors and solid 3/4" used more if you have a wood subfloor. Great product in the Triangulo, especially the new 5" with very long lengths(unusual for an engineered)

I would avoid the solid 5 1/2" because of too many problems in the past with sub par milling.

Yep, what forgotten said. Triangulo is engineered -- it was about the only option for our subfloor, which is a concrete slab with tile glued on top of it. We didn't want to tear up the tile, since it probably contained asbestos, so we had to go with what would work on top of it. It was pretty easy to install.

My only recommendation would be to buy about 15% more than your square footage, just to ensure that you get a good mix of lengths. The final room that we did ended up using a lot of shorter lengths of wood in it than our other rooms -- it looks fine, but it was a little frustrating at the time, making it work.

Hi, Rivkadr, Your floor looks great, we also wanted to put engineered wood over tiles; did you use something between the tiles and the BR11?
How does the installation hold up and do you have to be very carefull with water? ( we would use it in the kitchen and dining area )

Hi juukie -- we laid a combination moisture/sound underlayment called Quietwalk underneath the floor. The floor has been installed for two years now, and it's held up just fine so far -- no gaps, buckling, or any oddities. We live in SoCal, though, and have a generally mild climate that doesn't vary too much, though; we're lucky in that we don't have much in the way of extremes.

We did not install it in our kitchen, though. Personally, I'd be leery of installing hardwood in the kitchen, just because of the moisture issues, but I know some people do it and have no trouble. I'm glad we didn't do it, though -- we've already had two leaks in our kitchen over the past year!

I've added a few more photos of our floor, so that people can get a good idea of what the Brazilian Cherry looks like after a couple of years. The floors are badly in need of being washed, so ignore the cat hair and other detritus.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Floors

rivkadr, your floors are just gorgeous and got even prettier. Now I am realy considering the Brazilian Cherry after seeing your floors.

Thanks, Lynn -- we're very happy with our floors. They turned out exactly the way we wanted them to.

Some of the images on the BR-111 website show the floors as being brownish-red, but our floors ended up coming out to be much closer to an orangish red overall (there are some individual pieces that tend to a brownish color, but the overall effect is definitely more orangey-red than brown, IMHO). I don't know if there ends up being a difference based on when and where they harvest the wood, or what. I think you kind of have to be willing to go with something in the range between reddish-orange-brown without knowing for sure what you'll get, because it varies so much with Brazilian Cherry.

Wait a minute....Wait a minute...Caution Will Roberson!!!!!......Why would you need 15% extra wood if you are buying quality wood? Somebody needs to re-think this and do some math. If you are dealing with a quality wood you should need only 5% (according to my BR-111 dealers manual.) If Lowes sells the wood for $4.79 s/f and you purchase the 5% for waste that will bring your sq. ft. cost to $5.03 s/f. plus tax and labor. If you purchase 15% extra, that will bring your cost to $5.51 s/f. plus tax and labor. Also, remember the intallers gets paid on the total s/f you purchased not s/f of wood on the floor. Don't mean to be a busybody about this but we need to stay focused. Quality Wood Flooring should have a waste factor of 5%. Any thing above 7% and you need to re-evulate just what it is you are purchasing.

If you actually read my post, it had nothing to do with "waste factor" (implying that there was something wrong with the wood quality itself) and had to with length distribution. Each box of BR-111 (Triangulos, at least) generally comes with either 2 - 4 kinds of wood lengths. The 42" come mixed with the 12", the 24" come mixed with 30", etc. It's not like each box has every single kind of length mixed in so that you automatically get an even distribution. Nor are the boxes marked in any way on the outside to indicate what the lengths are within.

If you're doing a single room, you can probably open every box, and have a pretty good guess on the mix of wood lengths that you have. Since we were doing 3 bedrooms, a great room, and a hallway, we didn't really have a place to open up all that wood. So we had to hope that the mix of wood truly was equally mixed throughout as we were finishing up the final rooms...and guess what? It wasn't.

So I guess my statement about having 15% more wood should have a qualifier -- if you're able to open up all the boxes beforehand and get a good handle on the distribution of lengths, then it's not necessary. And if you're doing only one room, then again, it's probably not a big deal -- you'll be able to plan things accordingly. And hey, 15% is probably a little high, but I'd certainly recommend something like 10% if you're working with BR-111, and doing it yourself. Experienced installers can always find a way to make things work, I'm sure, but having a little extra overage when doing it yourself is never a bad idea, IMHO.