Everything You Need To Know To Find The Best Herringbone Flooring

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Known for adding elegance to any space that they occupy, Herringbone floors are an eye-catching statement element for your design. Perfect for those looking to add interest to their space without cluttering up their home, Herringbone flooring is seen as a luxurious addition to any interior design.

Because of their popularity, we&#;ve been getting quite a few questions about these floors, so we thought we&#;d put together this handy guide to help you decide whether they&#;re the right option for your home.

What Is Herringbone Flooring?

As shown on the right, Herringbone floors present a collection of peaks in a diagonal manner. As you move along the design, the long end of each piece aligns with the short end of the next to create a zig-zag pattern. This can be achieved with both floorboards and tiles and is most commonly installed in a direct stick manner.

Herringbone Floors VS Chevron

Chevron floors are quite similar to Herringbone one, however, instead of aligning the flat edge of each piece, Chevrons have a corner removed to create a perfectly triangular peak.

Herringbone Flooring VS Parquet

People often ask what the difference is between Herringbone and Parquet, but at the most basic level, they&#;re one and the same. Parquet simply refers to the type of flooring, while Herringbone is the exact design.

Should I Get Herringbone Flooring?

The answer to this question really comes down to your personal preference and ideal design style.

For example, if you&#;re looking to create a Country Chic interior, Herringbone is a great option. It&#;s also perfect for Hamptons homes, and we particularly love the use of Herringbone flooring in entry ways and passages throughout the home, as their pointed nature allows them to easily draw you into a space or lead the way to a highlighted element within your room.

Those wanting a more industrial design, however, would do better to select standard floorboards or even a polished concrete finish. There are also styles, such as minimalism, where Herringbone can be a great addition when carefully considered but requires a good eye for detail and integration with the overall design to really hit the mark.

Is Herringbone Flooring Hard To Lay?

The answer to this question depends on two things:

What you consider hard to lay

If you want a quick and easy installation process that&#;s DIY friendly and simple to smash out, Herringbone flooring probably isn&#;t for you. The exemption to this is our Masterpieces range of Laminate flooring, as although these floors present as Herringbone and Chevron, they are not installed in their pattern.

If you&#;re willing to invest some time and effort into getting things exactly how you want them, however, Herringbone floors aren&#;t that hard to lay.

What type of floor you select

The installation process for a herringbone floor that is crafted from small, intricate pieces, for example, will always be more difficult than laying a design foundation based on larger pieces such as our Luxury Vinyl Planks. As noted above, the process becomes easier again with our Masterpieces Laminate flooring collection, as these Chevron and Herringbone pattern floors sit on large format floorboards.

Does Herringbone Flooring Need Underlay?

The exact answer to this question will depend on the specific flooring that you choose. As a general rule, however, the answer is no if your chosen Herringbone uses a stick down installation method, but yes if you&#;re installing a floating floor.

For example, if you decide to create a Herringbone pattern using one of our Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring options, you could choose to install either Acoustalay or Helix 700 underneath for added acoustic benefits but isn&#;t necessary. If you would rather make use of our Masterpieces collection of Laminate flooring, however, you will need to select an appropriate hard flooring underlay alongside your floors.

Are Herringbone Floors Expensive?

Like any floor, Herringbone flooring can have a rather large difference in pricing depending on your specific choices. Value for money can easily be found by selecting a Laminate option such as our Masterpieces range, or creating your own Herringbone style using Vinyl floors like what has been done with our Naturale Plank 5.0 in the stunning Victor Harbour home showcased below.

Having said that, however, Herringbone can end up being quite an expensive flooring choice if you decide to have your design crafted using small timber pieces or tiles. This is due both to the cost of materials and the amount of effort that must be put in in order to install smaller pieces in a Herringbone pattern.

Are Herringbone Floors In Style?

Herringbone floors offer a classic aesthetic that never goes out of style. Having said that, they&#;re also particularly popular at the moment, so if you&#;re looking to renovate for profit or create a more on-trend design within your home, they&#;re the perfect option.

Herringbone can create a timeless style if you&#;re creating a suitable space, and many architects and interior decorators are suggesting this type of flooring at the moment.

Do Herringbone Floors Add Value?

As noted above, Herringbone flooring is a great way to add value to your home. The amount of value added will depend on the type of Herringbone you choose and the design which it is installed in, but it can certainly bump your property price and/or equity up.

It is important to remember, however, that this type of style is not for everyone, so if your main goal is to increase your sale price, you will need to consider whether it is more beneficial to you to appeal to a wider audience, or whether you would rather create a niche vibe within your home.

Herringbone Throughout The Home

Another super common question about Herringbone floors is whether they&#;re suitable for different areas of the home:

Yes, as a general rule, Herringbone flooring in all of its forms is suitable for installation in kitchens unless a specific product states otherwise.

Herringbone flooring is perfect for bedrooms, especially master suites. The warmth, elegance and character added by having such an intricate flooring design can really take your sleeping space to the next level, making Herringbone an ideal choice.

Although particularly well suited for more formal living spaces such as dining rooms, libraries, studies/home offices and parlours/sitting areas, Herringbone can be installed in all living spaces of your home where it suits the aesthetic that you&#;re going for.

Installing Herringbone floors in bathrooms is tricky, but certainly doable. In this instance, you would need to create your own pattern using either Luxury Vinyl Plank floorboards or tiles, as your chosen material must be suitable for installation in wet areas.

Much like bathrooms, laundries present restrictions on the installation of Herringbone flooring, but it is still possible. As laundries are considered wet areas, your options here will be limited to floors suitable for installation in these spaces, so you will be best off to select tiles or Vinyl flooring.

As noted earlier in this piece, Herringbone floors are a great way to lead people in a specific direction or highlight a key design element. This makes them a particularly wonderful choice for those looking to enhance the indoor/outdoor flow of their home. Simply position your Herringbone flooring so it points to either your indoor elements or outdoor living space (depending on the direction you&#;re facing) and you&#;ll enjoy enhanced flow between these areas.

What Herringbone Flooring Options Are Available In The Imagine Floors By Airstep Range?

We presently have four collections which can be used to create a chic Herringbone base for your design. Our Masterpieces Laminate Herringbone floors are the easiest way to achieve this kind of look, but if you&#;re willing to put in a little extra effort to get the exact style that you&#;re after, you can also create a Herringbone look with our Oatlands, Naturale Plank 3.0 and Naturale Plank 5.0 collections of Luxury Vinyl flooring.

Once you have made your decision about what type of floors you&#;d like in your home, head over to our Store Locator to find your preferred local flooring specialist and discuss installation.

Just because something is trending, doesn&#;t also mean that it can&#;t be timeless as well. But how do you know? 

After our herringbone wood floor was installed in our entry, I got to thinking that a really good test of whether you&#;re installing something timeless is to ask this question:

Would anyone walk into my house and immediately think, &#;Wow, these floors are so dated they need to come out immediately!!&#;

No, they wouldn&#;t.

But we would certainly say that about the basic taupe tile that everyone installed inside the grey trend &#; because it screams, &#;I was installed in the grey trend.&#; 

Yes, there are many ways to describe timeless, but I liked this one I found in the Collins Dictionary:

If you describe something as timeless, you mean that it is so good or beautiful that it cannot be affected by changes in society or fashion. 

Timeless really is about standing the test of time. Here&#;s another post where I defined it further. 

Herringbone Floors: Timeless or Trendy?

Herringbone floors fill the homes, hallways and streets of Europe and have for centuries. Is Herringbone trending right now? It definitely is. But it&#;s also a timeless pattern. It&#;s important to remember, just because something is trending, doesn&#;t mean it can&#;t be timeless. Timeless finishes have their moment too.

Taupe was THE MOST popular &#;grey&#; of this era because it&#;s basically a combination of grey and beige. This makes it look cooler than all the beiges. And while everyone wanted grey they often preferred the warmer side of the greys.

Get my newly designed (real paint) Understanding Undertones® Colour wheel here

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit EIR SPC Flooring.

Therefore, since my house was a custom build 12 years go, which would have been right in the middle of the grey trend, it&#;s no wonder I inherited a house that was filled with taupe from top to bottom.

This was the taupe 12&#; x 24&#; tile that was in the entry when we purchased the home. We interviewed a few hardwood flooring experts and found a company who located the existing engineered white oak flooring that we already had (and refinished it). It was ordered way back in November and just installed two weeks ago.

This was my inspiration photo:

In order to choose the pattern, we needed to decide which wall we would look at most &#; in other words, which area would be the focal point. This determines which direction the centre point would go:

We went with option 2 because when you walk into the entry you immediately see the staircase and the wall at the end of the hallway.

The other interesting tip is that the border going all the way around was ordered slightly wider than the existing wood floor boards I had (see the stained wood on the left in the photo below). The reason is that when the herringbone was installed this border board could be cut to size.

This eliminates small cuts when adding the herringbone boards &#; to accomodate for the full pattern. . . okay I&#;m not the expert and I&#;m likely describing this wrong. If you know, you know.

Here it is installed before it was stained to match the rest of my medium brown floors:

And here&#;s the after, so gorgeous!

Let&#;s see the before again, shall we:

And here&#;s the after:

You can watch the transformation here too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Maria Killam (@mariakillam)

Tired of hearing about grey wood floors?

Speaking of instagram, when I reposted my &#;Grey floors should never have been invented&#; reel on Instagram a couple weeks ago and it quickly amassed over a million views again. &#;

I wish I could turn this into a formula to use over and over again. I&#;ve talked about grey floors numerous times. What&#;s the magic with this video?

Unfortunately, it&#;s before I stopped putting black eyeliner under my eyes. After so many millennials were quick to inform me how bad it was, I changed my ways! They didn&#;t care for my red and yellow outfit as well, haha. 

In all seriousness, I stop reading the comments when a video goes viral because people are naturally upset that they realize they didn&#;t make the best decision. Sometimes you simply can&#;t &#;unsee&#; what I&#;ve pointed out. But if you are someone who found me from these videos, please know that it&#;s OK!

We ALL make mistakes in our decorating until we learn. And once we learn, we can do better next time.

That&#;s why I share some of my early design mistakes in my True Colour Expert Training. Every master was once a disaster, right?!

And, if you have grey floors, here&#;s how you can warm them up. Stick around, because my advice circles back to help you decorate around the things you cannot change too. Because I want you to love your home no matter what!

Since those videos on Instagram, I receive a lot of messages from followers asking me questions like, &#;Hey I&#;m considering ___________, is it trendy or timeless?&#;

There were also a lot of people who didn&#;t like my leopard runner (and that&#;s fine, I know it&#;s not for everyone) and declared it trendy. And, they&#;re not exactly wrong.

So here&#;s the thing, in my mind, carpet should NOT have an endless shelf life (ewwwww). Most people (if they can) are quick to replace inherited carpeting. It&#;s different than inherited stone floors or tile. 

Remember, timeless means that it&#;s so good or beautiful that it cannot be affected by changes in society or fashion &#; meaning you cannot immediately identify the trend cycle or era it was installed in.

Here&#;s my design philosophy. Install timeless finishes so that you can be trendy in your decorating. For example, it&#;s a lot easier and less expensive to replace your sofa or wallpaper, than replacing tile floors in your entry, sunroom or bathroom like I had to replace in this home. Not to mention disruptive and messy. 

The pushback that I get all the time are comments that sound like this:

&#;Install what you like. It&#;s YOUR house. YOU have to love it.&#;

This makes good copy in an article and it makes it easy for a salesperson to sell trendy finishes. But truly, we have all bought trendy items that quickly lost their charm as we watched them eventually or immediately look DATED.

That&#;s when we have &#;renovation regret&#; and wish we would have done something different. I bet each and every one of us has made this mistake before.

But that&#;s why boring now equals timeless later. When you install boring subway tile (for example) you can watch the trends come and go without getting upset that your renovation hadn&#;t started a little later because you&#;re already out of love with the trendy backsplash you installed.

If you&#;d like to learn how to decorate in a timeless way, become a True Colour Expert this Spring here.

Are you working on a renovation or new build this year? Work with me via eDesign here.

Related posts:

My New Leopard Print Runner

My New Living Room (Center Fireplace) Furniture Layout

What our New House Really Looks Like