How to Use Décor to Highlight Your Hardwood Floors

The neutral colors and orange accents in this modern Dallas home complement the light wood floors.

In my last design article, I discussed the different kinds of hardwood flooring available and the pros and cons of each. This follow-up article is aimed at homeowners who already have hardwood flooring but could use some help complementing it with the right décor. If you’ve ever wondered which wall paint colors go best with dark wood floors, which colors are best for light floors, or when to use rugs (and when not to), look no further: I’ll answer these questions and more here.

Start by Identifying Your Wood’s Color Tone

Ideally, the color scheme for a room should harmonize with the wood floor’s undertone color. Depending on its species or finish, wood can have tints of gray, red, orange, or yellow. Oak, for example, can be red or white (I personally prefer white oak because I think it makes a prettier brown). Pastel blue, cream, or apricot are good wall paint colors for a room with red oak floors. Meanwhile, charcoal gray or light gray are attractive wall colors for rooms with white oak floors.

How to Make Dark Wood Floors Shine

Grey paint, as seen here in the library of a Kessler Park home, is a good wall color to go with dark hardwood floors.

Rooms with dark wood floors need to have light walls to prevent the room from becoming too dark and cave-like. That said, this still leaves a wide variety of paint color options, from cream, to light gray, bronze, light blue, or pale green. Some people will also use painted furniture in light colors to create contrast against the dark floor. A more formal look can be achieved by using dark wood furniture that is a slightly lighter shade than the floors.

Incorporating plants is also a good idea: the bright greenery will really pop against the dark base. Natural light also reflects beautifully against the grain of dark-stained wood, so try to let in as much natural light as possible.

Tips for Working with Light Hardwood Floors

The best wall colors for rooms with light hardwood tend to be neutrals. Off-white will give the room an airy feel, cool gray will create an aura of relaxation, and warm gray will make the room seem cozy and inviting.

White furniture, a sandy brown rug, colorful accents, and gold or silver accessories are a winning combination for light hardwood floors. Some other area rug colors to consider are earth tones, burgundy, and peach. For the furnishings, you could go with grey or black furniture.

Almost every home with hardwood floors should use rugs.

A Word About Area Rugs

Area rugs are almost always a must for hardwood floors. They protect your floors from daily wear and tear while also softening footfalls. If you have wood furniture that is similar in color or tone to your wood floors, you can use a contrasting rug to create a buffer between them so that they don’t blend together.

Parquet floors are one of the only types of hardwood floors that I wouldn’t recommend using rugs on. Sometimes, the inlaid wood pattern is so busy that it would be overwhelming to break it up even further with rugs.

If your home has wood floors, don’t use all wood furniture. You can introduce more variety by including upholstery and pieces made of glass or metal.

Don’t Forget to Mix Up Materials

Though hardwood floors can complement other woods in the same color family, you’ll also need to mix things up by incorporating other materials in the room. Woven fabrics, leather, metal, and upholstery introduce an appealing variety of textures in a room.

As an example, rich brown hardwood goes well with organic materials, such as a natural stone fireplace. If your wood floor has a bright sheen, you can add some softness into the room with upholstered, curvaceous furniture. Metallics and glass will bring a sleek touch to a modern or contemporary home with white oak floors.

Hardwood is the most sought-after kind of flooring, so if you have it, you’ll naturally want to show it off. By harmonizing your hardwood floors with the right paint colors, furnishings, and fabrics, the process becomes much easier. Those who still find the prospect intimidating would do well to work with a designer.

An experienced designer like myself can take one look at a room with hardwood floors and know exactly which colors and style of furnishings will work best with it and its architecture. If you'd like to work with Chambers Interiors, give us a call at 214-651-7665 or send an email to info@chambersinteriors.com.

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• How to Mix Different Wood Tones and Finishes

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• Pick Out the Perfect Hardwood Floors With This Five-Step Checklist

Pick Out the Perfect Hardwood Floors with This Five-Step Checklist

Keep in mind that solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished, but some kinds of engineered hardwood cannot.

Hardwood is the preferred choice for flooring among Dallas interior designers and homeowners alike. While tile both looks and feels cold, wood has a sense of warmth, making it a good choice for living spaces and bedrooms. A wood floor with rugs is also more interesting than wall-to-wall carpet, easier to clean, and more hypoallergenic.

If you’re shopping for hardwood flooring for the very first time, you may be experiencing some “analysis paralysis.” Between choosing your wood species, sawing method, plank width, grain pattern, stain and finish, there are a lot of decisions that need to be made. Before you shop, I recommend going over the following checklist to help narrow down your options.

1. Choose between solid or engineered hardwood

Solid hardwood is the more traditional option, but engineered hardwood—in which a thin upper layer of wood is bonded to layers of plywood and composite material—is becoming more and more popular.

The advantages of solid hardwood are that it’s quieter underfoot and has a longer lifespan. If the wood veneer on engineered hardwood is too thin, it can’t be sanded and refinished in the future. The advantage of an engineered hardwood floor is that it is less likely to shift as the wood expands and contracts because different layers of the board create opposing forces on the wood. This makes engineered hardwood the best choice for rooms where moisture can be an issue, like basements and bathrooms.

Seen here are 5” quarter-sawn white oak planks. If you look closely, you can see the irregular patterns of the grain.

2. Choose your wood species

Oak is the most commonly used wood in the US because it is affordable, easy to stain, and durable. Cherry, maple, hickory, walnut and ash are other options, each with their own unique colors and grain patterns. Exotic woods, like Cumaru, Brazilian Koa, and Brazilian Cherry tend to be harder than domestic woods. No matter the species, try to select a wood that is already close to the stain color you want.

3. Choose your cut

Keep in mind that wood planks can also be cut in three different ways, yielding three different grain patterns. The most common and affordable method is plain-sawn, which creates the classic grain pattern with curving V-shaped marks (called cathedrals). A quarter-sawn plank has an intricate pattern of irregular growth rings. The most expensive method, rift-sawn, produces a series of very fine, straight lines.

4. Choose the plank width and pattern

In the past, two to three inches was the standard width for wood floor planks. Today, the latest trend is to use planks that are four to seven inches wide. Wider planks are associated with luxury homes and are an appropriate choice for large rooms. Of course, horizontal planks are not the only kind of wood flooring pattern. I think herringbone patterns go well with entryways, dining rooms, or studies.

The planks in this Kessler Park home are on the thin side, at about two and a half inches wide, which is typical of that period in time.

5. Choose your stain and finish

Dark and light stains are suited for different styles of homes. While light wood floors are a good choice for modern or casual homes, dark wood floors are more traditional and sophisticated. Prefinished wood is already stained with a topcoat applied, so you’ll be able to see what you’re getting. Having the wood finished on-site, however, allows you to choose your own stain color and sheen.

Different finishes can really transform wood flooring. The same wood plank in a mid-gloss, high-gloss, matte, distressed, or wire-brushed finish will look completely different. I suggest staying away from hand-scraped finishes, as they look dated. For high-traffic rooms, I recommend looking into polyurethane coating. It’s a new type of coating that is highly protective and often used for basketball courts. Bona Traffic HD is the brand I recommend: it’s durable but also looks like a beautiful wax.

When we redesigned this 1927 home, we kept the oak hardwood floors but sanded and re-stained them in a darker color.

Do all the different options make your head spin? Try looking at design magazines and focusing on the examples of wood flooring you see. You’ll get a better sense of what stain colors and grain patterns you gravitate towards.

At my firm, we typically use wood flooring with rugs in our projects, so we are very knowledgeable with the different types available and what the latest trends are. When in doubt, it never hurts to consult a professional before you take the plunge! To schedule a free consultation with us, call our Dallas office at 214-651-7665 or send an email to info@chambersinteriors.com.

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4 Things to Know Before You Update Your Bathroom or Powder Room

A few accessories, like a soap dish or some fresh flowers, are all that's needed to complete a bathroom counter.

Bathrooms and powder rooms are woefully overlooked areas in home design. Many people consider designing them an afterthought, or aren’t sure how to work with a small space. But no matter how small your powder rooms are, you deserve to have ones that are thoughtfully planned and tastefully designed. If you’re thinking about giving the bathrooms in your Dallas home a quick update—or an extensive remodel—you’ll surely find these tips useful.

Brunschwig & Fil’s iconic “Les Touches” wallpaper adds a playful touch to this bathroom we designed for a Dallas home.

2021 Bathroom Trends:

Although grey was a popular wall color for bathrooms the last few years, in 2021 it’s starting to go out of style. Instead, warmth is being brought into bathrooms through the use of gold or brass fixtures and wood accents. Wallpaper has also come back into style. If you do want to put up wallpaper, shop for the vinyl kind that is moisture-resistant.

While you’re updating, take a look into some of the latest developments in bathroom technology. These include smart showers that can be remotely set to start running, voice-activated lighting and temperature controls, and Bluetooth speakers for baths and showers. Heated floors have also been gaining popularity for some time now.

Layout Tips for Bathroom Remodels:

A common bathroom design mistake is to make your toilet the first thing a visitor sees when they enter the bathroom. Choose anything else as your focal point beside the toilet, such as your mirror, your bathtub, or your vanity. The toilet should be out-of-sight from the entrance whenever possible.

This area, with the freestanding tub and large antique mirror, serves as the focal point for this bathroom in Colleyville.

Bathrooms don’t have to be spacious to be appealing. To make a small powder room feel more luxurious, splurge on a few nice materials and finishes. If you prefer to take showers over baths, don’t take up too much floor space with a large tub.

When we remodeled this shower, we added glass doors, mosaic floor tiles, slabs of Carrera marble, and brass hardware.

You can maximize elbow room by installing a glass panel or shower curtains instead of a shower door. This way, you also won’t have to worry about your door swinging out and hitting the vanity.

Don’t forget to plan for storage space. Upper vanity cabinets along either side of the mirror are a smart solution for keeping toiletries out of sight. You can even build electrical outlets into the cabinets for plugging in your hairdryers and electric toothbrushes.

Choosing Flooring and Tiles:

There’s a reason why most bathrooms have tiled floors. Carpeting absorbs moisture and can develop mold, and if wood flooring becomes water damaged, it’s costly to replace. If you want the look of wood without the risk of water damage, I’d recommend porcelain tiles with a faux bois grain finish that emulate the look of real wood panels.

Improvements in manufacturing have paved the way for new and improved tile patterns, including chevron, diamond, hexagon, arabesque, and fish scales. I’m starting to see homeowners want to try new patterns instead of defaulting to subway tile.

The Best Lighting for Powder Rooms:

Lighting is always important for home design, and bathrooms are no exception. Older fluorescent light bulbs can cast an unflattering blue hue on skin, while dim lighting makes bathrooms feel small and closed-in. If the color tone of your bulbs is a cool white, update them with a warmer white.

The vertical cabinets in this vanity are great for storing toothbrushes, medications, etc. so they stay out of sight. The cabinets also contain electrical outlets, so everything can stay conveniently plugged in and ready to use.

As you update your lighting, make sure not to install the fixtures too far above your mirror, or else they’ll cast shadows on your face. Either bring the lights low enough so that they’re almost touching the mirror, or place sconces on either side of the mirror.

To make a bathroom feel light and airy, find a way to filter daylight in. A window to the outside or a skylight through the ceiling are both options. You can always put shutters over the window for more privacy.

We normally use tile in bathrooms, but the client wanted wood floors. To protect them, we added polyurethane coating.

For your finishing touches and decorations, keep things simple. Instead of cluttering counter space with lots of accessories, buy practical items—such as pretty soap dispensers—that are decorative and integrate into your overall design theme.

If your bathtub is next to a window, you can always add shades for privacy, like this motorized Roman shade we used.

Many people in Dallas continue to work from home and are thinking about ways they can give their surroundings a facelift. Whether you’re planning a full bathroom remodel, or just want to make better use of the space and layout you already have, the designer tips above will come in handy.

For those of you who are looking to bring in a professional, you should know that Chambers Interiors has a lot of experience a bathroom remodels. To schedule a free consultation, email us at info@chambersinteriors.com or call our Dallas office at 214-651-7665.

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