A wooden floor is a wooden floor, right? Wrong. There was a time when a wooden floor was simply installed for practicality, but when you can have something as beautiful as that soft, warm texture of wood on your floor, why not make the most of it?
Arranging a bunch of wooden panels on the floor might sound pretty basic, but with the grain of the wood catching the light and different shades in every block, you soon have yourself a mosaic of warm beauty beneath your feet. Some designs are, admittedly, better than others. So we’ve been searching around to see the different styles available to the wannabe wooden floor owner. It looks to us as though the options are practically limitless.
However, there is, of course, always a selection of elite options available. The options that are used by the best and brightest designers, the popular and the outstanding. We’ve selected our favourite three here.
Herringbone
There is something very traditional yet simultaneously quirky about the herringbone style, the way it zig zags perpetually in short, broken slabs of wood.
The herringbone style has blocks of wood sit perpendicular to each other, forming a thousand right angles right across your floor. Whether you’re using pale or dark wood, it really doesn’t matter, because it has a rustic sort of feel that is well suited to a light and airy conservatory or a dark and romantic library. It is potentially its versatility that makes it what it is.
Perhaps the only potential downside of the herringbone is its sharpness, it does lend itself to the imperfect, worn look, whereas versions of it in modern, minimalist rooms juxtapose too violently.
Chevron
We love the chevron. It is unusual and striking, and in the examples we’ve seen, it totally steals the room.
It is one of those regimented patterns that is so well suited to minimalist or ultra-modern designs where plenty of wood is used elsewhere. It seems to work well in darker woods, like engineered oaken floors or even darker species.
Perhaps the chevron brings forward the opposite problem that the herringbone did, in that it suits modern designs, but might look at odds in a rustic setting – we haven’t ever seen it used in one.
Parquet
The versatility of the parquet design is unquestionable. Where the other designs might be stuck in their ways, the parquet offers a number of designs all based around the idea of a geometric mosaic.
A parquet is, or should I say was, a method of tiled wooden flooring, but the method has now become just as much about appearance as it was about technique. A number of designs have come from this technique and it is a style that seems to permeate through homes both old and new.
It can be commonly found in older styled houses, and therefore immediately lends itself to retro designs, but it can equally be turned to modern styles with either light or dark.
So, those are our three favourite styles of wooden flooring design – is there one you particularly like?
Stephen MacVicar is the Founder of the flooring suppliers and specialists – Green Apple Flooring.