On Mar 22, 7:12*pm, wrote:

Mesquite to mess with but I guess it could be called, "orangy". *;-)

Well our mesquite floor in OUR house was a light mesqhite wich was a light brown orangy tint.

There are a lot of variations of color when working with mesquite, and
a lot has to do with the exact specimen. In the artists colonies
north of here, there was a thriving business in mesquite furniture of
all sizes and types, kitchen ware, cutting boards, and just about
anything you can think of. Flooring was/is still pretty popular, just
unaffordable for most.

Since it is a native here in South Texas, there is all manner of uses
for it. Some folks burn it, some barbecue with it, and personally, I
like to chuck it up and turn it on the lathe. It is extremely tough
and hard, and like Leon said, the shrinkage from green to dry is
almost nonexistent.

I have seen fire engine red mesquite, brown mesquite (barbecued with
that stuff), pink, orange red, orange yellow, etc. In fact there is
so much variation on the coloring the folks that sell it around here
no longer let you select your pieces based on color since the red
stuff is the most popular. They wind up with a lot of the brown stuff
that isn't really popular or dynamic.

If I were you and were still going to color that floor, I would use
deck paint. Sherwin Williams has some great stuff and they have it in
satin, semi gloss and gloss. If memory serves correctly, they even
have black.

Although I do finishing and refinishing as part of my living, I
wouldn't try to even out a bad stain job. Not only is there no end to
touching up, but it will never, ever look right. It will always look
second rate. Paint would be easy to apply, and the good stuff wears
like iron.

Robert