Darker flooring offers an inviting feel and opens up a space. Whether you choose rich colours or softer dark colours, they both have their advantages when it comes to expanding the appearance of a room.
Decorating Tips for Color
Generally, light colors make a room look bigger and brighter. Light and bright colored walls are more reflective making a room feel open and airy, and maximizing the effect of natural light. Dark colors, on the other hand, absorb light, making a room look smaller.
A natural look: Dark hardwood brings out the richness of the wood's grain, enhancing its natural look and giving your home a visually stunning appeal. Higher property value: While both light and dark hardwood flooring can give your home a higher market value, darker grain is known to lend itself to higher rewards.
Dark floors will not automatically make your room look smaller. While overloading a small space with dark colors will absorb light and make the space feel even smaller, dark floors can actually help to open a space up, if done correctly.
Dark-colored floors can make rooms seem darker and smaller. If a room doesn't receive a lot of natural light, a dark floor can make it appear gloomy and uninviting. When space is limited, as it often is in condos and apartments, dark floors can give the illusion of even less space.
You may be surprised to learn that dark wood flooring can help to make your room look bigger too. Darker flooring offers an inviting feel and opens up a space. Whether you choose rich colours or softer dark colours, they both have their advantages when it comes to expanding the appearance of a room.
Both dark and light floors work very well, and only you can choose which is best for you and your home. Dark floors tend to be more stylish and hide imperfections while light floors tend to show dirt less and last longer.
Dark brown hardwood floors in particular never seem to go out of fashion, they are always trendy and still in style. There's something about the contrast between dark wood floors and bright, light walls, white kitchen cabinets, furnishing etc. that epitomize a sophisticated and upmarket style.
Light color flooring tends to brighten up a space and make it feel larger.
Choose Dark Flooring
Unless the room is also small, going with dark flooring can actually draw the eye away from the low ceiling. Why not go with an espresso stained hardwood or a Brazilian Walnut? Add a fun area rug to draw even more visual interest to the floor.
Light Walls
The best way to compliment your dark floors is with light colored walls. The color contrast will offset your flooring and give you a nice balance of light and dark. Not only that, but the lighter color will cause more light to bounce around your room making it naturally brighter, and feel larger.
However, if you just can't decide, you can't go wrong with the versatile look of a dark wood floor. “If you are going for a timeless look, a darker wood tone will always be applicable,” says designer Kia Weatherspoon, president of D.C.-based Determined by Design.
Many home experts agree that the floor color should be darker than the walls. The rule generally applies because lighter walls and a dark floor make the room seem larger. Most homeowners prefer a spacious looking interior. However, the rule can change with low ceilings.
Big floral patterns make a room appear larger. Install wallpaper with horizontal stripes to make a room seem wider, or commit to vertical stripes to stretch the room visually and raise the ceiling. A busy pattern featuring chevrons, simple geometric designs, or a texture that mimics marble can make a room seem bigger.
And should the wood floors be lighter or darker than the cabinets? Decorators all agree on the answer. Wood floors can be lighter or darker than the cabinets, as long as the colors complement each other. The best way to do this is to start your project by picking 2 complementary colors and an accent color.
When it comes to small-space decorating, the common advice is to go all-white on the walls to reflect the most light and make the space feel bigger.
A choice of timeless hardwood floor colors
Brown Maple floors have hues of rich gold, amber and brown. Cherry floors feature a burnished auburn color that will darken over time. Hickory offers hues from lighter blonde sapwood to cocoa brown and beige heartwood. Red Oak comes in deep, salmon tones.
Dark floors may be a bit more difficult to clean than their lighter counterparts, but they are really great at hiding problems. For example, they don't fade as easily which means that they may need less refinishing over time.
Both light colors and wider planks have been the hardwood styles of choice with designers and architects for years, however 2020 forecasters predict that this will be THE hot look in flooring for consumers.
At first glance, you might assume that dark flooring is the way to go when it comes to choosing flooring that hides dirt. However, dark-colored floors can show dirt in a totally different way. As dust builds up, you'll definitely notice it start to accumulate much faster on a dark floor.
Additionally, darker gray floors will show more dirt and pet hair than their lighter counterpart. Conversely, with a lighter gray floor, it can open up smaller spaces and create an illusion of the room being larger and works better to hide dirt and pet hair.
Grey floors are easier to keep clean than dark brown hardwood floors because they show less dust. Lighter gray floors can make a room feel open and airy, while darker gray stains can visually reduce the space.
Floors don't need to be darker than the walls, but a darker floor visually grounds the space and if you have a light colored floors with dark furniture it would make the furniture appears to be floating in space and it's just not a pleasant room to be in.