Flooring can make or break your home decor – here's how to do it right

telegraph.co.uk:

endless choices, so it can be tempting to pick and mix and have a ­different finish in each room, but S­ummer advises a more sedate approach. “I prefer as much as possible to carry a floor finish through as many rooms as I can to stop the house feeling like patchwork,” she says. “One ­finish helps to tie rooms together, which I feel makes a successful project.”Summer says she is most often drawn to timber on the floor, even in bathrooms, as she loves the warmth it brings, as well as the fact that it is versatile in most spaces.

But says to avoid anything that looks “faux aged” – it means it won’t age well. Reclamation yards are good sources – Retrouvius frequently stocks reclaimed wooden flooring from board to parquet blocks. “Look for a reclaimed floor on an engineered board as it’s easier to lay and you can use underfloor heating, too.”Engineered flooring – layers of ply or pine with a top layer or veneer of quality timber – gets a bad rap because bad-quality versions can look cheap.

But Nicole Salvesen and Mary Graham of the interior design firm Salvesen Graham say it has come on a long way. “We tend to choose floors with a thicker veneer allowing for them to be sanded back several times,” Salvesen says, adding that clients like engineered boards for their stability.

Quality brands to try include the Natural Wood Floor Company, Cheville Parquet and Tuttoparquet.A quick fix to freshen up floorboards, adding colour (and even pattern if you’re willing to try your hand at stencilling), is to paint them.