There is no way to choose a flooring from pics in someone elses space and if the first choice was in stock why is it in a container ? I have no idea of your space of these choices . If you want a bit of help post pics of your space and pics of the choices I hate going back and forth to sites .

When I chose flooring for my house I was stuck between 2 choices. I bought one box of each and laid them out on my floor so I could really see how they looked in my space. The flooring supplier told me they don't normally take returns, but since I was buying enough flooring to cover my entire home they agreed to exchange the one that I didn't want for a second box of whichever I selected.

I think it is well worth the money to buy one box, even if it can't be returned, to be absolutely sure of your choice.

I do have a couple boards of each, but this house is not where I live and under construction so I only have them to look at in my house which isn't the right wall colour or lighting anyway. I just wanted to get a look at it on a larger scale in someone's home to see how much variation it has overall and get a better feel for it. The only images online are computer generated ones on the companies website. I selected only what they stock in their warehouse, didn't even look at what had to be ordered to avoid all the shipping delays and keep the project on track, BUT, their regular shipment to replenish the warehouse is over a month late at this point and who knows when it will get offloaded. I don't love the secondary options but was hoping seeing them in an actual room might help change my mind.

I also have samples of Coretec Bastion Elm they stock as well, which looks great on the samples, but I'm concerned the variation is a little much and it can come of stripey in a large room from online photos I've seen. There are some photos of that I found on other Houzz discussions.

Decided we couldn't wait any longer with no firm expected date, so going with the Bastion Elm that is here today and hoping for the best. My new pot lights are in a number of the rooms now so was able to get a better idea of how it will look with the lighting, walls are still the old colours though. Just part of renovating in all of this, you take the best of what you can get.