Mesquite Flooring
Mesquite Wood Known for it Stability & Beauty

Mesquite is a wood most well known for the barbeque and south-western flavoring, but what about mesquite floors? It's not the aromatic flavour I'm looking for, but beauty and durability.

A mesquite floor won't let you down! The lumber is known as being the most stable of all domestic woods throughout North America. Maybe that is one reason it is used by hunters for their most prized gunstocks. The figure and colour variations can be quite spectacular and the ability to deal with outside moisture variations is only a bonus. With mesquite flooring you have even a greater opportunity to appreciate these particular characteristics.

Grades of Flooring:
It is full of character. Most often it is found in lower grades like #1 or #2 common, that have included the small imperfections common in the tree like pin holes, bark inclusions & mineral streaks. These features add to its country charm and unique appearance.

If you are looking for a calmer more uniform floor be prepared to pay a premium, as select grades of mesquite wood are in short supply. This is particularly true with Texas floors as "common mesquite" species found in this region are typically short and twisted with large trees producing clear long planks of lumber in rather rare supply. You may be better off sourcing Argintinian "honey mesquite flooring" Sales of this wood species are more inclined to be of the upper grades.

Mesquite flooring can have a great range of colours from pale straw to reddy brown and even with some darker purple streaks. The grain can be straight but more often is swirly and if you're lucky includes some highly sought after figure including quilted, birdseye or fiddle back. In fact the tree is quite knarly and thus quite hard to find long, wide and clear boards as suggested earlier.

The Tree:
The Tree is found across 100 million acres of the Texan southwest and down into Mexico, with five or six different species distributed across this range, although there are actually 60 species of mesquite world wide. Not all species exhibit the same range of colours so it is quite important to make sure that you have a clear understanding of what you are buying so that you know what colouring to expect. Most "honey mesquite" flooring sales originate in Mexico and Argentine.

Machining:
It comes in the traditional strip style of flooring with a tongue and groove milled on the two long sides and sometimes on the end. Note NOT all flooring is end matched (the tongue and groove added to the end).

Some manufacturers believe that given its extreme stability this is unnecessary. I also have found that it is often only made ½" in thickness, so again best to clarify this if you are trying to install all your hardwood flooring at the same finished height.

As a somewhat unusual product mesquite rustic hardwood floors are produced as a square or round end cut wood block where the decorative face exposes all the growth rings and natural checking of the tree. This creates a truly unique finished floor for the right decorating environment.

Further Information:
Hard Wood Flooring
Other Wood Species of Hardwood Flooring
Janka Ratings For Hardwood Lumber

Mesquite Hardwood Flooring: Technical Data Sheet