Woking, Surrey

Deco Parquet Smoked Oak Herringbone creates a warm finish in lounge and bedroom design in this Edwardian Woking home

ZB201 Smoked Oak

The couple moved into the four bedroom detached home located in Woking, Surrey last November. While it was in general good order throughout they were keen to start the process of updating the spaces to their own taste. Lyndsay explains.

“When we viewed the house we absolutely loved the Edwardian style of the home, inside and out. While previous owners had kept it all in good condition, as we were buying a long-term home we knew we would want to slowly renovate all the spaces to our own taste, looking to embrace the Edwardian character and charm whilst adding modern touches.”

“We were happy living in the home and using the spaces as we started to plan how we wanted to renovate and redecorate the rooms. We were planning some building work in the future to go up into the loft of the house, and also complete a new kitchen, so as lockdown was just about to start we decided to bite the bullet and get the first two rooms completed that wouldn’t be affected by any future works, our living room and main bedroom.

“It would be a great starting point for our on-going project. A nice quick win to make two important spaces for us how we wanted them. One thing the previous owners had left was really worn out carpet in these rooms so changing this was a priority.”

With new floors at the top of the to-do list Lyndsay started researching ideas. I became a bit of a pinterest slave looking for ideas constantly. I was keen on a parquet style of floor as I thought it would work really well with the Edwardian feel of the home, and as I started seeing lots of lovely herringbone styles that had a slightly more modern edge I felt something like this would be ideal to feel authentic but also new and modern.

“One thing that was important to me for the project was trying to source as much as possible from local companies. I’d seen V4 Wood Flooring coming up quite often as I researched ideas and as they were based not far from us in Woking it felt like a perfect fit.”

Lyndsay contact the team during lockdown. At that point the V4 World showroom was closed but the team were happy to help on the phone and posted Lyndsay samples of the herringbone floors and a brochure. They were so helpful and the service was great, despite the lockdown situation, so that really convinced us that they could be the best local firm to source our new floors from. While the herringbone samples they sent looked great I really wanted to be sure we were making the right decision so decided to sit tight on a final choice until we could visit their V4 World showroom and see the floors in large sample format. Once the V4 World showroom re-opened by appointment I think we were one of the first people on the appointment list, we were keen to get cracking. Viewing the Deco Parquet collection during their visit the couple both loved the ZB201 Smoked Oak finish. It had a nice rustic feel giving a slightly aged appearance that would play to the period style of the house, but the tonal variety was lovely too and would be great in the living room which can sometimes be a bit dark as the different tones and textures would help lift this in different lights.”

“We also liked that although they are engineered wood blocks they had a really authentic and high quality feel about them. We wanted these new floors to stand the test of time and they really felt like they would.”

Decision made the couple went on to order the floors from Surrey Floors u0026amp; Doors in nearby Brookwood, using their local builder, Beat Construction, to complete the installation of the floors. Once the old carpet was removed the sub-floors required minimal work before the new wood floors were installed over the course of a week. We wanted to save our period skirting and luckily in the living room they were able to fit the new floors under them and we added a nice block detail border around the edges which works really well. For the bedroom we opted for the same border detail but here we had to add some matching beading as the floors wouldn’t fit under the original skirting. With the flooring complete and the rooms redecorated the couple finally have two completed spaces in their new home. For the living room walls have been kept classic and bright with a magnolia paint to enhance the feeling of space and natural light inside the room. For the bedroom we both love blue so wanted to make this a design theme of the space. I’d found a lovely art deco blue wallpaper on Wayfair that I was going to add to one of the walls as a bit of a feature, so I started looking for a lighter blue paint to pair with this. It turned out that getting paint in lockdown was a bit tricky as demand was so high and them I stumbled across a new company, Lick, who only supply online and could deliver quickly. I chose their Blue 04 for the rest of the bedroom walls. Once everything was sourced the renovation of both rooms was completed in just a couple of weeks. It was a great project to keep us busy in lockdown and made us feel like we were still making some progress on the house. Most of the furniture was from our previous home and it all fits so well into the design combining eclectic traditional styles and more modern pieces. Our bedroom now feels much more welcoming and cosy, but also light and airy, playing to the high ceilings and original character features. And our living room is the perfect place for us to settle down and relax in the evening.

“It was all completed by July and we love the finished rooms, especially the flooring. The herringbone style works so well in the spaces, we are really, really pleased with it. They have also been so easy to keep clean, even with our pet dog.”

“We’re glad we prioritised these rooms and ploughed on despite lockdown. Work is now happening on the kitchen before we look at extending upwards in the house and we will definitely be considering installing more of the Deco Parquet Smoked Oak floors in other rooms as we set about completing them in the future.