Instead of Antique

A substitute for Antique Heart Pine

Caribbean Heart Pine is the great substitute, “tell them it came out of Benjamin Franklin’s boyhood home, and they will never know it.”  The question: create the age or pay for it, i.e., Antiqued New or Antique Reclaimed Heart Pine. The d added to antique means a process not a declaration of age. In fact, Antiquing is the act of creating age, which becomes much easier with the right materials. Caribbean Heart Pine meets all the criteria in either grade, prime or rustic. 

Prime grade might be what you imagine when thinking about Heart Pine flooring, classic if you will. The colors are more uniform compared to our rustic grade, of course but there does exist enough variance to make it “interesting.”  Prime Grade Caribbean Heart Pine will have a few tiny pin knots compared to the larger knots and sapwood in the Rustic grade. Prime Grade wide plank Caribbean Heart Pine screams luxury, email us for recent customer pictures and samples. And just in case you are wondering, prime costs about .60 more per square foot. 

Sometimes you feel like a knot, sometimes you do not!

The difference between Prime and Rustic grade Caribbean Heart Pine is all about knots and variation, otherwise known as character. Rustic does not mean cheap or “country,” not always anyway. Rustic Caribbean Heart Pine is in some of the most expensive homes in the United States. How do we know? Because we sold the floors and shipped them to those zip codes that should have dollar signs in them; plus, the amazing Montana, Idaho, and New Mexico ranches just to name a few. 

Rustic does not mean anything other than knots and variation when talking about Caribbean Heart Pine. Both versions have 85% visible heart content. So, what is heart content? Heart content is color and color variation; sapwood and heartwood, also known as character. Rustic Caribbean Heart Pine contains more sapwood, as you would expect since sap comes from knots. The sapwood color, grain and knots differentiate rustic from the prime grade, it is not about quality just your style.