Our Best Interior Design Tips for Beautiful & Practical Floors from Gunter & Co
How to design the perfect flooring by London-based interior designer, Irene Gunter
PART 1: Flooring - where to start
Whenever we start a project, I don’t think about the flooring design in isolation – it has to be fully integral to what we’re trying to achieve within the overall aesthetic and layout of that particular floor level. From a more practical point of view we discuss with our clients what flooring is best for the kitchen and what flooring is best for the bathroom and work back from those key practical spaces to find a palette of materials that ties the entire home together. A ground floor, containing the reception rooms and the kitchen/family room has different requirements to the upper floors, which will include bedrooms and bathrooms. If we’re working on the whole house it’s important to spread different types of flooring ideas throughout, but in the most appropriate way so there is a sense of harmony and continuity that weaves its way throughout the home. The way the different surfaces flow together is paramount, whilst still taking into account the different colours, textures and maintenance/upkeep issues.
Personally, I find it interesting that different proportions of surfaces like tiles and planks can have an influence on the perception of the room or space in question. In a small room, choosing the appropriate scale of tile or plank can have a dramatic impact on how the room feels. In a long, narrow room or corridor don’t run long tiles or planks in straight parallel lines – that option will give a tunnel-like effect. Choose an angled or broken-up layout instead. If there is a door opening into another space, a clever trick is to angle the planks or tiles diagonally into the next room. It also draws the eye into the next room when the doors are left open, hinting at colours and patterns yet to be seen.
The ‘diagonal’ principle, incidentally is referenced a lot in garden design. Garden designers dealing with long and narrow gardens will avoid borders and work with curves and diagonals to draw the eye from one side of the garden to the other. In one of our recent projects, Chelsea Modern Townhouse we used diagonals of timber planks meeting tiles, which was an interesting way of allowing wood to meet stone without having straight lines cutting through the scheme. As I often say, it’s the details that matter, and one detail I am very careful about is the way different floor materials meet and work together.
One particularly successful way of blending materials together is combining wood and tiles – perhaps for a wooden living room floor that needs to blend into a stone kitchen or dining room floor. We would suggest adding a border in the opposite material, so a wooden living room floor could have a stone or tiled border that links it with the kitchen floor, drawing the eye through from one to the other, or the kitchen can have a wooden border which continues the scheme from the adjoining living room.
My favourite place to look for flooring inspiration is looking at how the high end retail industry tackles it where in the best shops on Bond Street you’ll rarely find one floor finish continuing throughout the entire store, but it’s approached in an original and unique way. One of my favourite ideas is to install an inset mat well at the front (or back) door, or perhaps in the boot room. The ‘well’ usually accommodates a piece of sturdy coir, which can easily be replaced when it gets too muddy. It protects the new wood or tiles from outdoor grit, which causes scratches that can soon dull a newly installed hard floor. Rather than thinking about a doormat as simple rectangles, we’re currently designing a project with a round design (inspired by the MaxMara store in Rome which I visited last January), so think outside the box and choose a shape that works best with the overall shape of the room and floor set-out.
For hard floors, my ‘go to’ is always natural materials, such as timber, natural stone or marble, or porcelain (or ceramic) tiles. There are some very clever porcelain or terrazzo designs around, which are often a more practical choice for larger areas, however we try to make a special effort to source oversize designs starting from 1 x 1m. We never use laminates, as they wouldn't suit the high-end nature of the projects we work on.
When we’re designing a tiled floor, we want it to look as seamless as possible, with minimal obvious grout or cement lines. There are three approaches we use here. For some rooms we go for large format slabs or tiles (such as 1500mm x 3000mm) so minimal cutting is needed. This approach works well in bathrooms, shower rooms and wet rooms. Our second approach is at the other extreme – to use mosaics, where there can be as many cuts as necessary, but they won’t impinge on the tiny scale of the individual tiles. Of course, we’re not sticking on individual mosaic tiles – they’re supplied in sheet form, usually 300mm x 300mm. Mosaics are also wonderful for curved rooms (whether ceilings or walls) which is a design approach we’ve been embracing more and more over the years, especially in bathrooms where curves feel more appropriate to the human form than sharp lines. I suppose our general approach to tiles is too ‘go big or go small!’. I like the idea that it’s difficult to see where one tile ends and another starts, the concept of a seamless aesthetic is important. That doesn’t preclude us from using smaller format tiles, such as 300mm x 300mm, but I would want tiles in that format to have an interesting overall pattern that creates a repetitive, seamless style. Finally you can also opt for a poured floor, e.g. a poured terrazzo or resin floor. People often associate this with a more commercial interior but we’ve visited several properties where the materials have been chosen very carefully with small stone compartments giving a beautiful aesthetic and incredibly comfortable and even soft underfoot.
Another thing that I’m particular about is the type of grouting we specify. In the studio we refer to several different grouting colour charts. Matching the grout to the colour of the tiles, or at least to the main colour or the background colour, is a really important way of achieving that high-end, seamless look. After quite a lot of research we’ve learned that an epoxy grout is the best choice, as it’s more durable and resistant to mould – it’s used in commercial swimming pools. And it avoids anyone having to go down on their hands and knees to scrub the grout lines.
Some of our favourite tile suppliers
Mandarin Stone For natural stone, limestone, marble and porcelain tiles and slabs.
Fired Earth An extensive choice of colours, patterns, styles, formats and materials.
Reed Harris For a wide collection that includes stone, marble, porcelain, terracotta, terrazzo and mosaics.
Parkside Vast collections, working with architects, developers and contractors.
Diespeker Beautiful terrazzo, marble, stone, quartz and engineered stone.
Claybrook Fabulous all-rounders, lovely colours and patterned choices.
Stone Age Spectacular variations, including sandstone, basalt, travertine and granite.
Lapicida Everything from porcelain and ceramics to stone and marbles, as well as reclaimed.
Gerald Culliford Wide choice of natural stones including granite and also brilliantly coloured marbles for work surfaces for future inspiration.
Stone World Definitely worth a visit with an astonishing 5000 slabs on display (make an appointment)
MGLW The Marble Granite Limestone Warehouse has an eye-watering choice of stone surfaces.