POSTED: May 20, 2009 by NancyJ
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OK
oh good grief, of course that is what it is. Both DH and I were completely puzzled while at the store. I suspect that the price difference really threw us completely off the rails of wondering what the difference was. But of course the more expensive the wood would be more/square foot - duh.
Are you sure that you're seeing what you think your seeing? Personally I looked at a lot of hardwood at a lot of price points and never saw anything where the stain colour goes all the way through the wood. (Ditto for fine furniture). I can't even imagine how they would do that. You'd have to soak the boards in a vat of stain for quite a while, I imagine. Normally stain does "penetrate" but not particularly far - just the surface layer, really. It doesn't look like much at all when you look at the end of the board. I wonder if what you're really seeing is different colours of actual wood. Some species have very dark natural colour (particularly some exotics, which would generally be more expensive in the first place). Even some less exotic choices like hickory and walnut are usually noticable darker than the common oak - and are generally quite a bit more expensive.
I would think that if the stain is right through, even if you sand them down, you will always have that stain. So, if you are getting light stained this time, you could probably stain darker the next; but if you get a dark stain, you won't be able to lighten it in the future. Personally, I would save the money and get the just-stained-on-top, and you would be free to do what you want next time round.
Also, are you going to be in that house long enough to worry about it?
Just my opinion, I would talk to hardwood floor people about it.