wooden flooring - colour advice!

[abdnhiker]

Hi, we're just about to put bamboo flooring throughout our house and are wondering about which colour to go with (see www.bambooflooringcompany.com/). I'm concerned that the lighter natural colour is too yellowish and am leaning towards the darker one but am concerned that it might make the rooms feel small. We're in a 1980s bungalow with big rooms, lots of light, but relatively low ceilings. Will darker floors make the rooms feel smaller? We would paint the rooms light colours (once we strip off all the flowery wallpaper!).

Bumping for you.

Dark colours will show up dust and specks of dirt a lot sooner. It might not make the rooms smaller, or darker, if you have light colours on the walls, what you have to think about is the style of your rooms. If you have a bright and modern style, lighter woods are more contemporary, but if you have a more "olde world" or colonnial style with dark wood furnitures, heavy cushions, plump upholstry, a darker colour would fit nicely. And if you are prepared to hoover a few times per week go for it!

My parents have a walnut floor, with period furniture and lush reds and heavy draped curtains. We have a very light birch floor, with a minimalist style, big windows, ligth modern curtains and silver blinds, stark leather furniture. It works well for both of us, as the colour of the floor match or furniture choices and overall style.

sooooorryy, I am rambling.

From the link I think one of the top three colours would be the easiest to live with.
The light are too light with not enough natural markings to disguise the dirt.The dark is nice but as you have low ceilings maybe too dark.

I have oak engineered wood and we picked one with the most knots and variations as we could.It is fab as it hides a multitude of sins.Friend has same type of flooring with hardly any knots and the dirt is very noticeable and she spends her life sweeping and washing it.

From the link I think one of the top three colours would be the easiest to live with.
The light are too light with not enough natural markings to disguise the dirt.The dark is nice but as you have low ceilings maybe too dark.

I have oak engineered wood and we picked one with the most knots and variations as we could.It is fab as it hides a multitude of sins.Friend has same type of flooring with hardly any knots and the dirt is very noticeable and she spends her life sweeping and washing it.

Thanks QS - we are more on the modern side so that's a good point. I'd love to go for a lighter wood but our budget doesn't stretch to it so I'll have to think about if the bamboo is too yellowish for us. I'm not too concerned about showing dirt as I have two kids under three and hoover every day because they are so messy!

I prefer darker floors - I think beech and so on are a bit 1990s now. You have to remember that the floor will (presumably) be broken up by lots of furniture, rugs etc so unless the colour is very dominating, or the ceilings are really very low, it will not be as overpowering as you imagine. I agree with QS that you should think about what furniture you currently have and match/blend accordingly; I just don't feel that light = modern/dark = traditional. I would go for the Carbonised Solid Strand Woven (£20.95) personally which I think is a nice warm brown - good prices by the way.

There's a very chic jewellery shop near me that has the floor in the top left photo (I know it's bamboo because it looks so good I asked what it was). It looks great. The showroom is fairly starkly furnished and has reasonably high ceilings but it really doesn't close in the space at all. The more chocolately shades might, but the top left one is quite a mid-range brown.

darker floors are classier imho. the best modern interiors i've seen (using 50's style danish modern, but still applies to "modern" modern imo) have polished black stained floorboards, yum. if you have lots of light furniture a dark floor will set it off better. i think we're going to grow out of the whole housdoctorish obsession with light colours to maximise space pretty soon, it's boring

x-posted, thanks ggirl! we are leaning to the first option (Carbonised Solid Strand Woven).

x-posted again -thanks everyone! Our furniture is mostly light and we're going to go with Roman blinds or wooden blinds for the windows so it wont be a fussy room. And I love 50s style danish modern! Someday when I'm rich I'll replace our sofas with something way more stylish!

thanks to the child tax credit refund we replaced our knackered old sofa with a fabby danish buttoned leather suite [swoon]. although it is covered up most of the time cos we have a toddler . unfortunately i now want all the rest of the furniture to match [rolleyes] am definitely getting a sideboard but must leave it at that cos i don't want it to look too themey and more to the point can't afford to replace anything else!