Design Tips to Give Your Wood Floor a Little “Character”

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Wood floors make a stunning addition to any home or apartment. Installing a new wood floor is a major step toward beautifying your home and can be done in pretty much any room of the house.

When it comes to interior design, the sky is the limit and there are plenty of ways you can introduce new floors into your home and give the wood just the right amount of “character”, depending on the flooring style you like best, and the look you want to create in your home.

Wide Plank Flooring

One of the best ways you can update your home, and give it more character, is with wide plank flooring. Wide plank flooring alone is so unique, and so much more special than traditional wood floors which are often narrow and all one width. Wide plank floors reflect a higher sense of quality and craftsmanship – plus they go well with any style home.

You can choose from a variety of colors, from ash and red oak to white maple and more — the width of the wood helps to make a space feel larger — no matter what size it is naturally. You can also design your floor to have or more less character depending on whether you look you want to create is more formal and sophisticated, rustic, or urban.

antique wide plank wood floors

Dark Wood Flooring

Many people opt for light wood in their homes. While this is a great option because of its versatility, a wide plank dark wood floor is a wonderful design elements if you want to an instant sense of allure and richness to a room. Consider a bright kitchen with white cabinets and a dark, walnut floor – the contrast helps the room feel larger and also boasts of wonderful design taste.

Rustic Wood Flooring

There are many ways to create a “rustic” floor. One of the most common is using antique wood flooring or reclaimed wood flooring. This kind of flooring is naturally very rustic because it is salvaged, sourced and resawn from beams, floor joists and other building components that have been standing for over 100 years. During this time they have acquired a beautiful color, nail holes, checks, knots, cracks and other imperfections that make them “perfectly imperfect” for a rustic style.

Left: bright white kitchen with dark hardwood flooring. Right: reclaimed antique hardwood flooring

Distressed Wood Flooring

Although reclaimed wood is going to give you the most naturally rustic appearance, you can also design a new wood floor to give it a more distressed appearance.

Hit or Miss Eastern White Pine flooring, for example, is often used as a substitute for Reclaimed Milled Barnwood because you can get an equally beautiful look, a slightly lower price point, and much wider boards – which is really what makes the floor unique in the first place.

There are many different distressing techniques you can use to make a new wood look older. This includes hand brushing the boards to distress the grain, hand distressing the boards to create a sculpted effect, that gives the floor a worn appearance, as if it has been walked on for generations. See all the hand distressing technique here.

ight and dark hardwood flooring in a checkerboard patternPatterned Floors

Another way of adding extra character to your wood floors is by choosing a parquet pattern. Since we make each floor to order, Carlisle offers parquet in a variety of woods and patterns, such as Chevron, Herringbone and Versailles. We can also work with you to create a design that is uniquely your own, including room borders and dramatic focal points.

Patterned floors come in many different colors and varieties, including dark wood flooring, wide plank, antique, and prefinished oak. It’s a great way to add authenticity and distinctiveness to a room in your home.

Are you interested in updating the look and feel of your home? If so, Carlisle Floors can help! We’re happy to work with you on custom projects and help you achieve exactly the look and feel you want in order to give your home a little extra character.

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