Replacing tiled floors with engineered oak flooring

Michael and Phillippa contacted Oak By Design after they had purchased their beautiful 5 bedroomed brick built detached home on an exclusive development on the outskirts of York.

Although the house was immaculate and they could move in straight away, it did require some modernisation, which they undertook with their interior designer.

Due to many of the floors being tiled and carpeted, and walls painted in dark colours, they wanted to lighten the rooms.

Choosing to replace the tiled floors with an engineered oak floor with underfloor heating was a practical decision. Wood flooring is warm, even when the UFH is off, and it has a warm, aesthetically pleasing look. With children and dogs running around the home, it is a very practical choice!

Many of the doors and windows in their new home were oak and wanting to retain these they chose an oak flooring with a white finish to tone and complement them.

The first floor they replaced was in the Games Room and they chose an engineered oak floor which had a wide board at 225mm. This came from the Kolonial range (this has a brushed finish), and Natural White in colour. The beauty of this board is that the natural oak colour is slightly lightened by the tinted oil finish so gives a lovely light finish. The brushing gives a textured finish that holds the tint and reflects the light.

A couple of months after replacing the Games Room floor the couple returned to Oak By Design to choose another engineered oak floor for the Drawing Room. The loved the herringbone pattern flooring they saw and took the sample board home for a few days to see how it looked in their home. It looked well!

For this engineered oak floor they chose the Pelgrim finish. This has an aged look, with slightly uneven areas and indentations. They chose 600mm long staves, at 120mm wide.

A Smoked White finish was their colour of choice. The fuming of these boards gives a naturally aged look to the oak. The colouring then applied to the boards gives a beautiful contrast between the deep natural oak and the tints of white. This contrast has a very natural look. It isn’t a flat, one tone colour, as a stain would give, it is a much more natural look. Just as all oak boards are different in shade and tone, so are these boards.

They chose to have a border made of two rows of the boards around the edge of the room, which gives a lovely finish to this type of flooring.