This is Armstrong’s photo of your flooring.

Honestly, I do not see a difference…shadows, “burn” marks, stain tones look like your floor.

Wait to hear what the rep says. I know you are disappointed; I hope she responds in your favor.

Thanks...rep thinks this is unacceptable. What I see its that the stain is applied inconsistently. The variation in the wood and wood absorption of the stain, combined with the variation in the scrape were why I selected the floor (and I have this already in 1000 square feet of space). What concerns me is, that on top of the "natural" and "scrape" variation, there is an inconsistent application of stain and pooling of stain and several with burn marks. That pattern is not present in the flooring I have installed from a prior purchase. You can see brush marks or role marks that do not align with any natural or scraped variation.

Maybe it is a bad batch? The rep can check for you. When they did my flooring - eng hardwood - some boxes had things like that and I just asked the installer to pull out the bad ones then I returned them. They also told me to buy a few extra boxes from this lot bc if I need replacement boards down the line, the coloring may not match so I’m thinking it may have something to do with the batch. Don’t lose hope yet!

Thanks Mandy...here is the crazy part. Armstrong had 3500 square feet of this in storage and when we first got samples we saw this same problem. They assured us this was a bad batch (acknowledged this was unacceptable), told us they had disposed of all of it,and assured us what we got (or would get) would not have this error and poor quality. Grr...If this is acceptable to the company, what do I do for flooring in the room adjacent to the current flooring? Tile would not be comfortable for a great room, and carpet won't wear well and is not at all what we want.

Do you know if any of the boards are okay or is every one of them like that? If so, does another store carry them? I would ask the place where you got them to open a few more boxes to see if they are like that. I’d also see if the distributor can send a few boxes from a different batch. If you want & love that floor, I would exhaust all possible options.

50% okay. I am waiting on response from Armstrong. My distributor and installer are all on board for picking the good boards and returning the rest.

Heard the result today...and an Armstrong rep came and said 1) yes it is different, 2) yes it has the same name, 3) we are not going to do anything about it (even though we told you a year ago that the difference between yours and current supply was Just a bad batch - and sent a box from a “new” batch without the inconsistencies) and 4) you should do carpet. The local company is still willing to buy twice as much and look for good pieces, but they can’t guarantee we can find enough good pieces (awesome to offer this since they would be taking a big financial hit). So now what do I do? We would lose the scrape if we stripped current floor and restaurant bed along with new wood floor. If we switch flooring it would essentially change mid-room between the front room and new addition. We can’t afford new flooring in the whole home ( and current wood is only 4 years old). We are also paying a premium price For the less than ideal flooring if we settle for the uneven flooring (and any cut in price would go to the dealer since he is buying twice as much to get enough decent product) Any ideas on how to deal with this?

*restaurant bed = restained

Take the offer of 100% waste (double the amount needed) and hope for the best. This is the BEST you can hope for. And please send the store a nice gift basket once your project is finished. This is a GREAT offer that would rarely see the light of day anywhere else.

You are being offer a great solution. Please take it. The few planks that will be a bit wonky can be used in closets and at the edges of rooms (where furniture will normally sit). After a few months, you probably won't remember where those pieces are.

Thank you and agree on gift basket. That is definitely where I am leaning.