A possible buyer calls to let you understand they’ve found unique wooden flooring below the outdated carpet of their newly bought previous Victorian house. Upon additional demo of the previous carpet, you uncover a lot of the flooring is, sadly, not salvageable.

This case performed out once I started renovating my Victorian house in one among Brooklyn’s historic neighborhoods, Fiske Terrace. I had each intention of rehabbing the house’s current oak flooring. To my dismay, I found that the traditional radiators put in all through the home had been leaking water into the wooden for years. It wasn’t till we began renovating that we discovered that the flooring had been extraordinarily water broken and unsalvageable. As an alternative, I needed to shift my design plan and deal with putting in new flooring to modernize the home whereas sustaining its historic worth.

When updating the flooring in a historic property, it’s important to know what makes for a very lovely restoration. Whereas tendencies might come and go, some timeless designs won’t ever exit of fashion. I typically see householders and designers choosing darkish gray wooden and/or stains to retain a selected, historic look. Generally, utilizing darkish colours on the ground could make the home’s general design really feel heavy and far darker. As an alternative, I wish to go for impartial colours in lighter tones. Woods like white oak, cherry, and maple are my favourite to work with as a consequence of their sturdiness. I additionally wish to go for much less staining to maintain the wooden wanting extra impartial.

Along with choosing lighter-toned stains, I like to recommend large planks for flooring in historic houses. Whereas thinner planks could also be extra conventional, I discover that they appear dated and may make a house really feel busy and small. Planks at the least 7″ large present a delicate, fashionable contact whereas making the area really feel far more open.

After discovering the previous flooring wasn’t able to being renovated, I put in 7 1/2” prefinished engineered oak. The brand new flooring enhances the historic options we had been capable of retain all through the house and feels each fashionable and timeless.

When putting in new flooring quite than restoring it, easy selections might be made to make sure the house maintains its historic enchantment and feels up to date. Selecting a light-toned wooden, like white oak, cherry, or maple, can present a seamless backdrop for the inside design whereas concurrently brightening the area. Equally, choosing planks which might be 7″ or wider will assist so as to add dimension to the house whereas including a delicate, fashionable contact. Developments change rapidly within the design world, however these wooden flooring choices stay timeless.

Natalie Rebuck is principal of Re: Design, an award-winning boutique structure and inside design agency based mostly in Brooklyn, New York. Rebuck has greater than 16 years of expertise managing a variety of complicated business and residential initiatives throughout the globe. Rebekah Jenkins, administrative assistant at Re: Design, contributed to this text. Re: Design might be reached at information@redesignarchitects.com.