Should wood floors match throughout the house?

One of the hotly debated topics in home improvements and new builds is whether to have different wood floors in house designs or to choose a consistent flooring material throughout the main body of the building.

What’s your view?

The look and ‘feel’ of your home should always pivot around your own personal preferences and your individual lifestyle. As well as any physical characteristics of your property. Though many homeowners draw inspiration from interior design trends and popular concepts.

This can lead to being perplexed by mixing hardwoods in a house, rather than installing matching flooring between rooms.

There are some good reasons to get creative with hardwood floors. However, there are equally excellent arguments for creating uniformity in your primary rooms and hallways.

So, it’s worth looking at this wood flooring issue from all angles!

Advantages of the same flooring throughout the house

Let’s first explore why the answer might be yes, when you wonder ‘should flooring be same throughout my house?’.

Avoiding the option of having multiple wood floors in house designs, and installing one type and colour, creates a natural flow around your home. It brings a consistency that can trick the eye into thinking the property is more spacious too. It harmonises open plan living spaces.

For some fans of hardwood flooring, not having different wood floors in same house layouts also makes the interior design easier to plan and commission. Having chosen one colour, pattern and type of wood flooring – from a supplier offering the correct quality level – it can be installed throughout quickly and with minimum stress.

It may also lead to cost savings too, by ‘buying in bulk’. So, if you’re on a budget, and wondering ‘should I put the same flooring throughout my house?’ the answer might be yes!

Concerns about how to mix wood floors in homes can also hold people back. Choosing complementary and matching flooring materials can seem rather an overwhelming and unnecessary complication. Particularly if you want to get your home’s floors looking stunning and co-ordinated swiftly.

Keep in mind also, that installing one choice of hardwood throughout the main floor of your property can be soothing and easy on the eye. This can be particularly relevant in compact homes. In that situation, using different flooring in every room could make the interior seem too ‘busy’ and random, potentially making it seem even smaller.

Can you mix different wood floors in a house?

After saying all that, for some homeowners, mixing hardwood flooring in different rooms is all part of the joy of planning your own interiors.

Let’s now look at the benefits of different wood flooring throughout house designs.

For one thing, you may use different color wood floors in same house layouts to ‘zone’ your home. It helps you to aesthetically support the different purposes of different rooms or areas. For example, a particular choice can clearly indicate where your property’s reception area and living spaces start and finish. Or, different flooring in kitchens can be used to indicate the food preparation area, if this shares a room with your dining space or family hangout zone.

Of course, having a kitchen floor different from rest of house flooring can be functional. You may want to opt for something particularly robust and easy maintenance in there.

Different hardwoods in adjoining rooms could also enable you to become more creative with your interior designs, varying the appearance and ambience of different rooms. Modern wood floor designers and manufacturers offer such incredible choices, with diverse patterns and effects. Using different color wood floors in house interior design is a great starting point for stamping a separate personality on different rooms or areas.

This is the very opposite of the consistency and flow gained by using matching or the same materials. For example, different hardwood floors in connecting rooms can purposely and definitively make each room unique.

How to plan different flooring in different rooms

Having answered the question is it ok to have different flooring in different rooms, how do you get this to look amazing?

It does require careful thought and of course, care when commissioning and installing the variety of types and finishes. Especially if you are planning to have different color wood floors in different rooms, as you need to avoid a clash!

Looking at different color wood floors in home improvement showrooms or sample books can be deceptive. When the materials are laid next to each other, in large quantities with all the light qualities and features of your structure, the effect needs to be visually appealing.

Though you can still make a dramatic statement with different color hardwood floors in same house layouts.

For example, adding a dark wood floor and subdued lighting can make a bedroom seem more intimate and private. A lighter wood floor in a child’s room, with bright coloured painted walls and finishing touches, can bring it to life and make it an appealing place to ‘hang out’.

You can also vary hardwoods to make the most of grain and patterns to enhance the features of each room. Large, south-facing rooms can look superb if mahogany or Brazilian walnut is laid out along the length of the floor, creating a sense of opulence and elegance. A compact room with limited natural light could be ‘lifted’ by the addition of a light, bright maple, white oak, or ash floor. Laid correctly, it could even create the illusion of more space.

Different color flooring in different rooms can achieve amazing visual results, making your whole property your interior design ‘tapestry’.

So, go for one, or different color hardwood in different rooms?

Put simply, the answer to the question do wood floors have to match room to room, is entirely one of personal choice. You can choose to have different flooring in each room if that works for you, but synergy and flow from selecting one central flooring material can look wonderful too.

If you are still perplexed, why not ask the experts to provide samples, solutions and inspiration!