One of the first tasks I was given as designer, was to find a cool wooden flooring for an apartment of a footballer home we were designing at that time. Having worked previously at small flooring store in Manchester, I found that really exciting yet scary as everyone has a different view of a ‘’cool’. When it actually comes to choosing the floor yourself, it can be a really scary task, as there so many to chose from.

Same as many trends, wooden flooring has it’s own very strong sector within interior design. I try to attend surface design every year to see what’s the new trends within flooring and walls but also it’s exciting to see all the cool tiles, wallpapers and textures. As it’s a new year, I have decided to chat more about wooden flooring because there have been so many trends predictions posts already, and I feel like wooden flooring been shuffled under the carpet 😉 I have previously talked about flooring in my girl’s guide to flooring and focused on rented spaces. There are so many exciting bits that really want to share with you.

Within the past years, we have seen so many cool trends. White wash wooden flooring was I think of the strongest trend along with unfinished wood and parquet flooring. I personally think these don’t go anywhere yet, and still trending strongly. Which is good, as these effects are simply beautiful.

Bloomingville 2017 collection lookbook, these guys knows what flooring to pick to present their amazing furniture & accessories!

I start with unfinished wood. Whether is a panel effect, engineering wood or unfinished solid wood, we can all agree that this is the most popular flooring in past years, and I think this type of wood flooring still, is going very strong as a trend. Loads of my clients pick these type of flooring when I give them samples to chose from, but also companies like Bloomingville use them to showcase their new collections, they know. Also, within the natural ranges, the dark wood will be storming 2017 well. With eclectic trend become more and more popular, people start adapting the interior style home, dark walnut floors are now very popular within people’s choices, therefore, it will definitely make the wooden flooring trend in 2017.

Lifestyle vertical images shows Bloomingville 2017 collection lookbook, all square showcasing Luxury flooring finishes and (top graphic-bottom image- Walls&floors) and Bottom graphic ( image left Blomingville 2017 collection & image right Luxury Flooring dark walnut flooring)

We all know that adding a bit of colour to our homes can really help to make the space look stylish. I’ve noticed this wooden floor trend emerged in office interior and retail, but I am happy to see that slowly it also adapts in our homes. We saw last year, tiles merged with wood usually within a herringbone pattern or hexagon and I think this was the big 2015/2016 trends but I think 2017 will be taken over by colour pop up in homes! I already talked about bold colours in homes in the previous post, so have a look.

Tiles companies started to replicate wood. The first attempts were pretty awful, as I remember having a sample landed on my desk which landed in my bin 3 seconds later. In the past years, however, the textures and techniques of replicating wood got a little more advanced and now we can see pretty impressive tiles with wood grains. Why would you do that, someone would say? Well, for example, to use them in a more damp environment like kitchen & bathrooms but I think the idea was to adapt into the commercial market where the wood in many options would be too expensive yet not very durable.

 

Top picture, Porcelain tiles of ABK company (Dolphin collection)   Bottom picture, Retail store of Stella McCourtney with colourful planks flooring designed by Raw Edges who were named best designers of the future for this project and designed many stored of this brand.

Once we talk about adding a colour, then let’s hope to the wood stencilling. We saw stencilling on concrete and mostly in terrace and balcony floor panels, but rarely I’ve seen a stencilling in an actual home unless a cool home of an even cooler DIY blogger. This, however, is all going to change as seeing some amazing trees on surface design, there are companies that getting out of their skin to create us the beautiful effects.

Examples of beautiful wooden floor stencilling with a very soft and shabby chic patterns. First 2 pictures example from Remodelista post, and last image is a beautiful design by Anne from White Lace Cottage and you can read more about how she created this stunning look on her blog.

Stencilling on wood with just a spare paint is not going to be durable, neither sticking vinyl on it. It may work amazingly for a stylish photoshoot trends look-books but If you try to live in space where under your feet you have a bit of paint or sticker, I can guarantee the sticker will peel off eventually and the stencilled parts will get washed off or extremely dirty. Again there are few amazing solutions for it, like brass inlay patterns or imitation of chipboard with the pattern on it.

Okey, I know chipboard is not really a wooden panel but having chipboard flooring became quite a trend within industrial and boho styles, however, a clean untreated chipboard will get dirty, very dirty. I know few companies who designed shops with chipboard flooring, and as much as amazing it looks in their portfolio images, that now walking into the spaces it’s just gross. The solution is creating a porcelain panel. Vives Ceramica, which also one of my best tiles supplier ever, create these beautiful panels that imitate a chipboard with vinyl design on it. the simple geometric shapes just literally stole my heart. Whether home, commercial or retail space, I would put these everywhere 😉

Top graphics and bottom images are fro  Strand collection by Vives Ceramica. One of the best source for ceramic tiles I came across. ( Not just wood effect but all sorts)

Another solution and trend for 2017 within wooden flooring is metallic inlay within the floor. We used to see these many years ago, in more posh environments but now with Morrocan and Italians tiles coming back to trends in past years, wood is following this trends too. So far I’ve seen this in fancy restaurants, but recently had a request to source these for my domestic interior clients. Yay to metallic wooden floors. aren’t the gorgeous?

Stunning examples of metallic inlay in wood flooring. First image is a flower design by Italian company Lemma Pavimenti Artigianali, The second image is by another company called Parchettificio Toscano and last image is from collection by company called Ariana

*collaborative post but opinion as always my very own, so the grammar errors;p