Creating a cosy home starts from the ground up, and with all of its characterful knots and knolls, only a natural wood floor can offer autumn-ready warmth.
Salvaged style
If you’re after a look that’s rustic and raw, choose reclaimed wood flooring and you’ll be doing your bit for the environment as well as your cosy, nature-inspired living spaces. The Main Company is a brand that specialises in repurposing – and refashioning – salvaged wood to create beautiful flooring. This home project saw the team fit out the floorboards with reclaimed engineered weathered barn board, and it’s full of English country pub charm. Each plank has been painstakingly restored and perfectly finished to bring out the wood’s natural grain, while the flooring offers attractive and organic variations in tone.
£127.50 +VAT per sq m (maincompany.com)
Back to black
For a truly dramatic look underfoot, don’t be afraid to go over to the dark side. As a neutral, a dark wood floor provides a theatrical backdrop upon which brighter, lighter homewares really pop out – and this can make a pleasing contrast. This highly textured Parquetry Deimos flooring from Ted Todd, in an almost black, is surprisingly warming. Playing to nature’s own geometrics, ingeniously, the European oak has been cut horizontally to reveal the rings of the tree, creating an arresting circular pattern. The hand-brushed end grain flooring has been treated with a deeply penetrating burnished hard wax oil, which gives it that glamorous, noir sheen. High fashion flooring.
£237.54 per sq m (tedtodd.co.uk)
Block out
Parquet flooring is as popular as ever, but do you know your chevron from your herringbone or your Chantilly from your Versailles? Choosing a pattern is no mean feat: parquetry has the ability to visually widen or narrow a room. A busier arrangement can overwhelm a smaller space – and yet it can be truly majestic in a suitably grand hall. Bringing a beautiful texture beyond that of the natural wood itself is this intricate geometric design from flooring specialists, Benott, who’ve laid the floors of this residential project by architectural design studio Zulufish. In Mansion Weave, it’s one eye-catching wood floor that successfully and seamlessly connects the adjoining rooms.
£300 per sq m (benott.co.uk)
Eco elegance
For flooring that’s 100 per cent sustainable, consider bamboo. Technically a type of fast-growing grass, the material can be strand-woven for durability, which gives most hardwoods a run for their money. Climate-conscious brand Woodpecker offers a range of beautifully crafted bamboo floors, including their Oxwich Natural Strand. This is an eco-friendly alternative to pale wood flooring, and a more affordable one at that. Finished in a matt lacquer, these blond planks retain the authentic light, bright shade of organic bamboo whilst offering a similar visual texture to that of a conventional wood floor. Witness the light bounce off the surface.
£74.01 per sq m (woodpeckerflooring.co.uk)
Grey area
Hailed as the new neutral, grey is enjoying a renaissance in interiors, with a wealth of new releases from wallpaper to bedding, accessories to larger furniture pieces – and stylish wood flooring wants in on the act, too. Effortlessly chic, it’s a colour that both blends into any scheme and offers a cool, contemporary aesthetic. A versatile hue, silvery tones can be mixed with warmer greys to create an arresting visual texture, as in this modern, open-plan abode, which features Havwoods’ Fresco Herringbone flooring. Crafted from brushed and burnt European oak, and boasting a beautiful natural patina, this floor celebrates a full palette of greys.
£161.94 per sq m (havwoods.com)
