10 Super Smart Ways to Bring Out the Beauty of Wood Floors

Wood floors—whether hardwood, laminate or wood-looks such as luxury vinyl planks—are a popular choice across homes of all styles. This versatile flooring option is a favorite for both its practicality and good looks, bringing beautiful texture and a sense of warmth to kitchens, living rooms, entryways, bedrooms, and more.

The natural material makes a statement in nearly any space, leaving many homeowners to wonder how to decorate with wood floors. Because this surface material is so prominent, you’ll want to make sure to choose wall colors, furniture, and accessories that coordinate with your wood floors.

You don’t have to match every element exactly to achieve a cohesive look. By following a few simple design tricks, you can enhance the timeless appeal of your wood flooring while incorporating your personal style. Use these decorating ideas for wood floors to play up this sought-after feature.

1. Choose a complementary color palette.

One of the trickiest parts of decorating with wood floors is selecting the right color scheme. The best way to determine which colors go with your wood flooring is to look at the material’s undertone. Wood often features subtle hints of yellow, orange, red, gray, or brown within the finish. Once you’ve determined the underlying hue, apply the principles of the color wheel to select colors that complement your wood floors. Shades of blue help balance wood with yellow or orange tones, for example, while green looks gorgeous against floors with true brown coloring.

2. Vary materials across furniture and accessories.

A room with wood flooring and wood furnishings might appear too cold for most people’s tastes. Balance the look by incorporating a variety of materials within your furniture and accessories. Wood floors pair beautifully with an array of other textures, including woven fabrics, leather, metal, concrete, painted surfaces, and more, which you can bring in through upholstered seating, accent furniture, and wall decor. Layer in wood accents in smaller ways, such as on the legs of furniture or with accessories like picture frames, to tie the room together.

3. Continue wood floors throughout rooms.

In homes designed with open floor plans, the flooring choice should typically remain constant between rooms. Avoid seams between spaces by installing planks that naturally flow from room to room without awkward dividers. Consistency in flooring makes for an appealing aesthetic and easier cleaning in the long run. Area rugs and furniture arrangements become important design tools that define spaces when you have a single type of flooring.

4. Soften wood floors with rugs.

Wood lacks the softness of carpet but is not nearly as hard as tile underfoot. Repeated footsteps over the course of a day can cause discomfort, so minimize the effect and any adverse impact on the body with area rugs that add comfort. Layering area rugs on top of wood floors helps define sitting areas in open spaces and anchor sofas and accent chairs into a cohesive group. A house full of hard surfaces can also be loud. Rugs can reduce the extra noise.

5. Accentuate modern wood floors.

Wood flooring is a natural material that goes with all styles of interiors. It provides a welcome juxtaposition against sleek modern elements. It works especially well for injecting warmth into kitchens, which are otherwise typically covered in smooth, hard surfaces. You can add visual texture and warmth with a rustic wood species in a honey finish. Or go sleek with a hardwood with a tight grain and refined finish that minimizes grain lines.

6. Mix wood tones between floors and furniture.

Ignore any notion that requires wood tones to match. A modern approach to design purposefully blends the rough and rustic with the stained and polished in varied stains and grains for a collected-over-time look. Combine wood floors and furniture that feature diverse textures and stains, but aim to mix wood finishes with a similar undertone, such as gray or yellow.

7. Use texture to balance wood floors.

Balance the visual weight and firmness of wood with softer fabrics and area rugs. To contrast the hard surface, consider natural linen, wool, or nubby cotton to add softness. The windows are another opportunity to bring in texture like bamboo roller blinds or an open weave fabric in drapery panels. It’s all part of making a room feel layered and cozy.

8. Lighten up dark wood floors.

In a kitchen with dark floors, it’s nice to use a painted finish on the cabinetry to avoid the wood-on-wood look. Other choices that can help brighten up dark wood floors are dressing the windows with curtains that allow natural light to wash into the room. Light or white painted walls can brighten a room with dark floors. Likewise, an area rug is another tool you can use to interrupt an expanse of dark wood flooring.

9. Consider wood flooring as a neutral.

Treat wood floors that lack intense yellow or red undertones as a neutral. With this type of wood flooring, you can feel free to layer furniture and accents in your palette of choice. In this dining nook, the beauty of wood floors is exposed by the purposeful elimination of an area rug and the lighter upholstered chairs and unique rattan pedestal dining table that sit on top.

10. Bring in bright colors.

Take the spotlight away from wood floors by layering in painted pieces. In this cheerful kitchen, for example, a painted island and brightly colored bar stools pull the eye up and away from wood floors. This brings the focus to the colorful accents. Work around unattractive or damaged floors you might have inherited by employing the same tactics of artful distraction.

How to Refinish Old Wood floors

Wood floors require maintenance. They scratch and show stains with use and time. And like any decor decision, the stain finish that was popular 20 or 30 years ago probably looks really out of date with your personal style. If you’re looking at your floors thinking, It’s time, then let’s figure it out.

If refinishing hardwood floors is in your future, there’s a lot to consider. Should you hire a professional or DIY? Do you have the tool IQ and experience to do a competent job? And if you hire help, just how much will it cost to refinish those hardood floors? Skill and budget are always part of the decision process.

The process of refinishing wood floors is fairly straightforward: Refinishing starts with removing all furniture, window treatments, and rugs. Then, the floor is checked for any large holes and cracks, which can be repaired using wood filler. Floors are sanded to remove the current varnish, seal, and stain, and once the bare wood and natural grain are visible again, floors are buffed to remove any sanding marks. You can apply fresh stain or vanish, followed by a coat of sealant. Of course, staining isn’t always necessary, but doing so can refresh the color and give the room a new look.