Your home should reflect your own unique tastes and design style. It is important to understand your own decorating style before selecting your hardwood flooring so that you choose a species and colour that will enhance your decor and your space.
If you appreciate the rugged beauty of a rustic style [1], a wide board in our character grade, showcasing the natural beauty of the wood may appeal to you.
If you adore the stream-lined style of contemporary furniture and modern art, the seamless and elegant maple floors would complement your lifestyle.
Take a look in our photos in our inspiration gallery [2] to help guide you in the right direction. It is important to understand your own decorating style, before you make any decisions regarding your hardwood floor purchase.
The best way to find out what your design style is, is to look around you. If you are just starting out in life, and do not own any furniture or are just out of college and have no idea what you like... take a good look in your closet. Your favorite pieces will give you a great start and will guide you in the right direction. If you have been around for a while, and over years had a chance to collect different furniture pieces, they will also tell you what you like and where to go from there.
You may have an eclectic style that started with some of your grandmother's pieces. You have added to them over time to complement and form your own decorating style. Choices abound from the traditional, sophisticated and rich grains and wide colour selections of the Northern White Oak [3], to the exotic appeal and incredible beauty of Brazilian Cherry [4].
The traditional, sophisticated and rich variation of majestic Northern Red Oak [5] floor, gives a traditional wood grainy look with a lot of grain interwoven throughout each board. Here you may find gleaming dinning room tables and persian area rugs, with tailored drapery framing the windows.
If you like traditional, but are a bit more daring, you may love a hardwood similar to oak, but with a lot more grain and character. If so, the incredible beauty of White Ash [6] will work with your style. Ash is harder than oak, so if you have high traffic or a busy home, Ash will work better than oak. No matter what your style, you should know it, before you start making any decisions regarding your new hardwood floor.
The choice you make here will become one of the major parts of your decorating scheme. If all your furniture is shaker style or traditional country, they will be out of place on a modern, seamless Hard Maple [7].
If you own high lacquered, sophisticated pieces it will be a mistake to showcase them on the wide plank, knotted pine. If you are sure of your decorating style, your choice of hardwood will work with the furniture you already own and the furniture you wll acquire in the future.
One other aspect of choosing your hardwood floor process you must consider along with the decorating style is your lifestyle. You need to look into your life, the lives of any family members who may live in the home, the amount of traffic or visitors to your home, your activities, your habits, whether or not you have pets, and the favorite locations or high traffic areas within your home.
Know your lifestye and your decorating style to help you choose the right hardwood.