Different styles of wood flooring, oak herringbone, chevron and plank

We have discussed engineered or solid wood flooring, we have talked about which finishes you can choose from and how to fit wooden flooring in your home. next, we have to talk about what style of oak flooring you wish to have; there are 3 main styles of wooden flooring, plank, herringbone and chevron. Each with their own individual widths and thicknesses. I know, it can seem like a minefield of choice and in our next blogs we have to discuss the grade of wood flooring and colours, but relax, ill try to explain a little about each style and why/ where you might find different styles in your homes.

First, to the basics, Plank flooring. The classic choice, plank flooring is often the style chosen as its normal the cheaper option (quicker to lay), than its counterpart oak herringbone, it compliments well lite rooms as you can follow the grain through the boards. A sound choice for open plan rooms as it will bring the rooms together better than any parquet choice. I would definitely recommend plank flooring for smaller rooms and this style is universal i.e suits a modern new build home or a victorian terrace. Plank flooring is versitile, you can install on joists, it is more forgiving on concrete floors that are un level an can be nailed easier to timber subfloors like plywood or chipboard. The plank style can also be floated as a fitting method (click flooring) where in my opinion oak herringbone floors should always be glued to the subfloor to decrease movement. Wooden flooring in the plank style are more forgiving to blemishes and imperfections from the manufactourer as your eye is not drawn so accurately to the pattern as you would with parquet. 

Herringbone; looks like a fishbone pattern, two blocks angled and a 45 degree front face to side face of block. Oak herringbone flooring has soared over the recent years in popularity, this I believe is down to is customisation options. If you choose an unfinished oak herringbone then you can add boarders around the edges of the floor, in lay patterns in the middle and many different styles of oak herringbone lay lines across the floor. Oak herringbone floors are more expensive to lay than plank floors as they require more time to get it right, trust me you don’t want to get your first few lines wrong as you will keep what you sow further across the floor and unlike plank floors, its harder to remedy un straight lines. Oak herringbone flooring suits large rooms as it is a busy pattern generally and this helps to bring character to big rooms in your house, although you can lay oak herringbone in any home off course, in my opinion it very much suits the larger older homes (estate homes and manors etc). It’s very hard to beat an oak herringbone floor next to an old hearth fire. Few things to bear in mind with oak herringbone floors, if pre finished engineered wood flooring its a much easier install than solid wood flooring, the manufacturing process is much better on engineered wood floors making each individual block identical in size to another. If you have a pre finished engineered oak herringbone wooden floor installed then it will have no boarder around the room, as I mentioned earlier, the only way to have a customised boarder is to install unfinished oak flooring and sand and finish on site. (this is generally more expensive).

Chevron; Chevron floors have not been around for as long as herringbone or plank styles, this is due to the fact that chevron has to be a engineered wood flooring due to the exact 45 degree angle required on a left and right plank to ensure that beautiful arrow type fit and look across the floor, chevron wood flooring I think is best suited in modern buildings with large open plans like museums or galleries. Oak chevrons, much like oak herringbone floors really suit light rooms, when I say light I mean a lot of natural light as opposed to bright bulbs. A chevron floor even ore so than a herringbone floor must have level subfloor (3mm difference over a 2 metre length) otherwise the fitting is very difficult. Again fit a solid wood floor chevron style at your peril. Chevron style echo’s what I mentioned earlier regarding boarders and if boarders are wanted on your chevron wooden flooring project then it will be more costly than a pre finished chevron. 

In summary parquet style floors are beautiful however they will suit certain types of homes and rooms more than others and be more expensive to fit with possible subfloor attention always needed. A plank floor with most often be cheaper, easier and suit more homes and rooms than not.