Cabin Grade - Any experience?

I've tried to do as much research as I could about cabin grade flooring. I'm looking at enginered flooring from Tarkett. This mission has been brought on because our carpet really needs to be replaced - but our budget really isn't the best. We've found cabin grade at a price that would allow us to do the entire project rather than trying do a room by room when we can approach. I've got a family member that is giving me about 250sq ft of standard grade and now I've found cabin to match. Everything I've read says that its structural sound. I understand that it has worm holes etc etc. Has anyone actually used it or have any experience with it? I've seen a few pictures here and there and it doesn't look that bad. We can do the entire project for about 1/4 of the price of normal grade. Will we be sorry 5-7 years down the road? I understand there will be up to 15% waste but even with that overage we will still come out way ahead! Something seems too good to be true... please tell me what it is before I buy it! Whether or not you will like cabin grade is a matter of personal taste. See this recent post: http://forum.doityourself.com/showth...ht=cabin+grade my friend used cabin grade in a house he built yeas ago, it looked awesome so much color almost looked exotic! There where missing knots and check marks but added to the character. He did'nt use the best sealer being a cheap ass! but it held up good to his wild devil kids running around and wild lab on speed!! I have good luck with bonna seal commercial sealer, easy to apply no strong smell. I would fill the knots with wood putty to match color, my friend just filled the knot with poly which I thought was dumb! Good luck. At 1.49 a sf vs. about $6 for 1st quality I figured it was worth a shot. I purchased the Tarkett engineered product and overall I'm very pleased with everything. The factory marks each board with a grease marker to show the defect that kicked it out of the run. These are nice because it helps to pinpoint exactly what the issue may be. The majority have a knick on one end or the other. Some had too much of a color difference in the adjoining pieces, plywood issues in a small section. The reality is that of the 8' boards its usually only about 2-3inches that have any problems. One thing to consider though is that I think it takes more time to work with this quality. Initially I thought I'd just cut out the bad spot and work around it. What I quickly realized is that would either eliminate the tongue or the groove (since most damage was within 2 inches of the ends with nicks or splits) leaving me with limited places to utilize the board. I took some time to sort through 4 or 5 boxes and now basically hand pick a board that has an issue as close to where I need to cut as possible. I allowed for 20% overage and am probably being too conservative - but I don't want to end up short either! So overall - the floor that I am ending up with at this point is as good as first quality. I've removed all the issues and only laid portions that would be considered 1st quality. Its taking a little extra time, but I don't mind it considering it saves about $4+ a sf! In the end I'd recommend it...

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