Parquet Flooring

If hardwood flooring gives a home a traditional elegance, parquet flooring is a step beyond the regular straight planking of wood flooring. In case you don't know exactly what parquet flooring is, it's any form of ornamental design associated with wood flooring. The floor on the Boston Garden—where the Celtics play—is the most recognizable parquet floor. It can involve cutting a uniform wood into geometrical pieces to give the floor a pattern or it can involve more complex splicing of different woods to give a fully custom made appearance. The ornate floors that you might imagine in a palace or museum are high-end examples of parquet flooring.

Additional Costs
The nature of this flooring means it's going to cost more than other wood flooring, but you can control how much more expensive it gets. A basic parquet option is really nothing more than individually cutting pieces of the wood flooring to create texture. This texture can enhance the beauty of your wood flooring without causing the price to spiral out of control. The price of more complicated choices involving multiple woods will depend on the kinds of woods you use and the complexity of the design. These more ornamental designs may also demand a more high-quality finish, treatment, and adhesive technique limiting cost-cutting options open to plain wood flooring. Once you have a preliminary understanding of what you want from your wood flooring, a contractor should be able to give you an estimate on the additional cost.

The Sky's the Limit
If you're an artistically inclined person, you can design your own floor. Most parquet flooring contractors now have computer-driven manufacturing, which means you can provide them with your own design and they can make it happen. If you like the idea of designing your own floor but think you might need a second opinion, you can always design your own pattern and show it to an expert flooring contractor. They can probably show you a larger scale model of what the pattern will look like and offer suggestions about what works and what doesn't work. Obviously, you can also give the contractor an idea of what you want and see what they come up with. The point is to remember part of the essence of parquet is to be unique and custom made.

If you're looking for something even more luxurious, you might consider a medallion. Medallions are elaborately decorative circles placed in the middle of parquet flooring: Think something between a stained-glass window and a Buddhist sand mosaic. Medallions are usually more appropriate for extremely upscale settings.

Mixing and Matching with Borders
Something else you might consider with parquet flooring is framing the design with a regular border or using the parquet itself as a border. Using the parquet as a border can give a room an extra flair without making the price too exorbitant. On the other hand, framing the parquet with a regular plank border emphasizes the parquet. When done well, it makes the floor take on the absolutely stunning appearance of an area rug made from wood.