DECOR : Art of the Wood Floor: Inlays and Borders

The floor in the foyer in the Fairfield, Conn., home of Susan Hankins and Bob Gulash is every bit as complex as a fine old tapestry. The difference is, it’s wood.

The Renaissance-style inlay has a double image of a lion (Hankins’ birth sign) and a falcon (her longtime interest). The design is further embellished with a fleur-de-lis surrounded by Florentine scrollwork. It is custom-made of nine species of wood through an ancient craft known as marquetry.

Woodworker Eugene Klotz of Renaissance Floor Inlays in San Francisco used strips of two varieties of American walnut, birdseye maple and pearwood, African padauk, wenge and avodire, Brazilian cherry and Australian lacewood to create the 4-by-5-foot inlaid panel. The panel then was shipped from San Francisco and installed by a Connecticut contractor.

Hankins contacted Klotz after seeing an example of his work in a flooring trade publication. Once she chose the motifs, the two collaborated on the final design via telephone and mail.

The design won an award this year from the National Wood Flooring Assn. and is an example of a national trend toward inlays and inserts to dress up wood floors.

All of the award-winning residential floors in the annual competition are either custom borders or medallions, according to Bonnie Holmes, executive secretary of the trade group in Memphis, Tenn. Woods of various color and grain in combination with materials such as stone or ceramic tile offer an almost unlimited number of patterns.

Not all of the patterns invoke the past. Another 1994 winner, Jim Caroll of Buffalo Hard Wood Floor Center in Buffalo, N.Y., bordered a pale birdseye maple floor with slender stripes of black wenge. The custom border in the dining area of a Buffalo home surrounds the dining table and chairs.

“Very rarely would we exactly repeat a design,” Caroll said. “People may see what we have done in other homes in our showroom samples, but they want a floor that is personalized to their home.”

Besides borders, other popular motifs include circular inlays such as a compass rose, six-pointed star, initials and insignias such as an eagle or a buffalo head. The dining room is the room most often selected for a border, followed by the foyer and the den.

“Men often want to go all-out in their den with a medallion or an inlay,” Caroll said. “We have done college insignias, and a friend of mine installed a floor with the logo of the Portland Trail Blazers.”

Designing and installing a custom wood inlay or border should be left to specialists. It is important to select woods that react to humidity and temperature changes more or less at the same rate. Otherwise, chaos will reign as the woods expand and contract with the weather.

There also are various methods of installation, depending on climate. The more complex the pattern, the more costly the installation. As a rule, figure that a custom inlay will double the cost of the wood floor, Caroll said.

One way to keep costs low is to assemble a wood panel and ship it to the site. Historic Floors of Oshkosh in Oshkosh, Wis., for example, makes about 25 standard borders and 22 medallions or inserts. These are shipped ready to be placed in a new or an existing wood floor by a local installer or experienced do-it-yourselfer.

Most of Historic Floors’ patterns are based on turn-of-the-century originals, said Dick Norton, marketing manager. Working from photographs, the company also will repair old borders. Historic Floors’ borders range from $7 to $50 a linear foot. For a new floor, a 27-inch medallion costs about $200, a 36-inch one about $350.

Historic Floors sells primarily through distributors such as Caroll’s company in Buffalo, but will send catalogues to consumers on request.

For homeowners who want a custom look without the effort or expense, Caroll suggests a painted floor. The existing floor is stripped of its finish, a design is painted either by stencil or in freehand and then the floor is coated in a clear polyurethane. Although it’s highly decorative, a painted floor isn’t as long-lasting as an inlaid wood floor.

“Don’t expect the paint to last longer than five years in a kitchen or other high-traffic room,” Caroll says. “Clients who request this application usually want to match wallpaper or fabric.”

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Historic Floors of Oshkosh, P.O. Box 572, Oshkosh, Wis. 54902. Telephone (414) 233-5066.