Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Por Que Parquet?


Parquet flooring.

Quick!

What is the first thing that comes to mind?

For many I bet words like character, warmth, desirable, amongst other lovelies come to mind.

For me, images of funky 3rd floor one room apartments with dish towel curtains targeted at financially strapped college students come flooding in to my head.

I'm all grown up now and trying so hard to be mature about this. So, can we talk? I'm sure I will offend some people when I say that I simply don't like them. Maybe it's just my personal baggage.

Now I know there are some absolutely breath-taking parquet floors out there. I've seen them. Still, they bug me. I mean, the rest of the room becomes so totally secondary to these detailed, inlaid gems. The level of craftsmanship and upkeep that these entail deserve much better than their ultimate function allows.  I feel like it's sacrilege whenever I walk on them.

With that said, there are parquets that I could live with if I had to. And those I couldn't.



Nope. 



Nope.



Oh geez, no.



Mayyybeee.
hmmmmmm maybe not. 

.

Nope. This would drive me nuts.



This works. I think the stain and poly saves it.



um, no. Too basket-y.



Alright. If I MUST live in this space, I'd tolerate it. :) 

Cool. Totally do-able. I'm thinking entryway.

Wow, didn't even notice the floor. So, yeah, this works just fine, too!

Sorry. Would not be able to deal with the squares.

This isn't parquet but I love the dark stain and just had to pop it in.

So, what's going on out there in real life design land? Who's with me on this and who isn't?

4 comments:

DesignTies said...

I'm not a fan of parquet floors either. Luckily, we discovered water damage to some parts of the parquet in our basement, so we tore it out and replaced it with zebrano laminate. MUCH better :-)

That being said, there are some nice looking parquet floors -- but the typical style of parquet just doesn't do it for me.

Kelly

Marija said...

I'm with you. I can do herringbone or maybe, just maybe a really well done vintage parquet but for the most part, give me ebonized oak, or even whitewashed or limed and I'm infinitely happier! Marija

"Yeah, that works..!" said...

phew - feels so good to be in such great company! Thanks, gals! I'm gonna look into that zebrano laminate. Thanks for the tip, Kelly.

Unknown said...

Im with you it totally depends on the application. But I think Im going to add basket-y to my vocabulary, that just cracked me up

inspiration is all around even where we least expect it