Areas and choice

Natural Wooden Flooring is a suitable, hygienic floor covering for most areas in the home or commercial premises (like offices, reception area, retail showrooms). Wood You Like doesn't recommend the use of it in so-called wet-rooms but when proper care is taken wooden floors can be installed in larger family bathrooms and/or cloakrooms.

Solid wood floors are suitable for most areas except in areas where rapid changes in temperature (hallways, conservatories) happen or where the normal air-humidity tends to be higher than in other rooms (kitchens, utility rooms, bathrooms, cloakrooms).

In those areas wood-engineered floors or original parquet floors are preferred due to the stability the construction of these products give compared to solid floorboards. Although original parquet floors are in fact solid wooden floors, the original method of glueing and most times also nailing the woodblocks of 6mm to 10mm thick on 8mm solid wood mosaic tiles (or small chipboard-plywood sheets in some circumstances) creates a cross-backed subfloor increasing the stability of the whole floor.

Mostly the choice in type of wooden flooring per area is down to personal taste but it is worth to consider some points:

Long, narrow areas, like hallways will look even narrower and longer if a small full-plank with bevels is chosen. A better option here would be a 2 or 3-strip flooring where all the combined little strips, each with its own character, will focus ones view on the whole floor and not on the traveling-to-the-end lines.
Wider boards in large rooms will create an illusion of more space.

Staying with hallways, because of the heavy-traffic harder wood species are recommended for greater resistance against wear and tear. Light colours in these heavy-traffic areas will require a bit more maintenance, where a darker tone wouldn't show every speck of dirt as easy.

2 or 3-strips, due to their economical price compared with full-planks and their varied character, will suite bedrooms. A very cost-effective solution when anti-allergic floor covering is needed, without compromising on variety of tones and textures.

Colour is also a very important item. Don't forget that the colour of your walls and/or the lighting scheme (both natural and artificial) you have will also reflect on the wood.

Also keep in mind that wood matures over time, meaning it will change in colour in a very natural way too. Oak, when a natural finish is applies, turns from pale to its typical Honey Colour and many of the tropical species will turn darker. Request our special: "All about the maturing of Wood-Species" leaflet to see how over 20 different wood species change colour in two years time.

A wide selection of natural wooden flooring: From Basic Oak to Bespoke can be found in our secure webshop