How to Choose a Timber Floor Colour for Your Home

To choose a timber floor colour, start with the light in the room, then look at the fixed things you are keeping, such as kitchen joinery, benchtops, doors and fireplaces, and pick a tone that sits comfortably with them. Then think about what the floor has to hide: dust, pet hair and scratches show least on mid tones. Always judge samples on the floor in your own house, morning and evening, before you decide.

The four tone groups

We group our range into four broad tones. Each suits certain rooms, and each has a few traits worth knowing before you decide.

Tone	Looks best	Shows most	Examples from our range
Light and blonde	Small or dim rooms, white and pale joinery, Scandinavian or coastal interiors	Dark grit, spills, dark hair	White Smoke, Valis, Blackbutt
Neutral and grey	Cool interiors with white or charcoal joinery, stone and black tapware	Sits in the middle for dust	Smoke Grey, French Grey, Mink
Warm browns	Period homes, timber furniture, cream, white or green joinery	Least of all; the most forgiving	Natural Oak, Light Tan, Caramel Sundae
Dark and rich	Large, bright rooms with pale walls	Dust, pale hair, scratches	Hidalgo, Nero Brown, Edgey

You can browse each group on its own page: light and blonde, neutral and grey, warm browns and dark and rich.

Start with the light

The same board can look like three different colours in three different rooms. Light changes a floor more than anything else in the house, so work out what kind of light each room gets before you look at samples.

North-facing rooms

In Melbourne, rooms facing north get the most direct sun through the day, especially in winter when the sun sits low. Warm sunlight pushes every floor warmer and brighter. A pale board can look almost washed out in full sun, and a mid brown can glow. North-facing living areas are also where timber changes colour fastest over the years, so blinds or curtains help keep it even.

South-facing rooms

These get softer, cooler, indirect light. Greys can look cold and flat here, and a very dark floor can make the room feel smaller. Light and warm tones usually work better. A south-facing room is a good place to test any grey you are considering, because it shows the grey at its coolest.

West-facing rooms

West-facing rooms get harsh afternoon sun, low and hot. This light exaggerates warmth in the late afternoon, and it is the light that fades and changes floors the most over time.

Artificial light

Most living areas are used at night, under downlights. Warm-white LEDs can make a grey oak read almost beige. Cool-white ones make warm floors look flatter. Look at your samples under your own lights after dark, not only in daylight.

Work around what you’re keeping

A floor is the largest surface in most rooms, but it shouldn’t be chosen in isolation. Start by looking at what isn’t changing.

• Kitchen joinery and benchtops. Bring a cabinet door or a benchtop offcut to the showroom if you can, or at least a photo taken in daylight. You want the floor either clearly contrasting or clearly related. Timber tones that nearly match usually look unintentional.
• Doors, skirtings and architraves. Warm stained timber trim in an older house can clash with a grey floor. Painted white trim works with almost anything.
• Fireplaces and brick. Red brick sits well with warm browns. Cool greys can clash with it.
• Undertone. Every floor leans somewhere: yellow, red, grey or pink. Hold samples next to your benchtop and walls and the lean shows quickly.

If the house has a mix of warm and cool finishes, a colour that sits between grey and brown, such as Mink, can bridge the two.

What the floor needs to hide

This is the practical side of colour, and it’s easy to overlook in a showroom.

Very dark floors show everything that is paler than they are: dust, crumbs, pale pet hair, footprints and scratches. They look very good when freshly cleaned, but they need cleaning often. Very pale floors show dark grit and spills. Mid tones hide the most, which is why warm mid-brown oaks are such a common choice for family homes.

If you have a dog, lean the floor towards the colour of its coat. Our guide to the best flooring for dogs covers finish and colour for pet owners in more detail.

The finish matters as much as the colour. All our engineered oaks have a matte brushed surface, which hides fine scratches and dust far better than a glossier finish. Our Australian hardwoods come in a smooth 10% gloss finish or matte brushed.

Even colour or plenty of variation

Colour isn’t only about the tone. It’s also about how much the boards differ from one another, and people tend to have a strong preference once they see both side by side.

Our standard oak colours give a fairly even look across the floor, with the natural grain and the odd knot you’d expect in oak. Our reactive-finish series goes the other way. The boards are brushed and then given a reactive finish, which brings out variation from board to board, so some come out lighter and some darker. Westminster, St James and Oxburgh sit with the grey and neutral tones, and Jacobean with the lighter tones. They suit houses where a new floor shouldn’t look shiny and new, such as an Edwardian house or a room with exposed brick.

If you like a varied floor, it needs space. The variation reads best across a bigger area, and installers mix boards from several packs as they lay so light and dark boards spread evenly. In a small room, a varied board can look busy. If you want calm and uniform, stay with the standard colours.

Room size and flow

Light floors make small or dim rooms feel bigger. Dark floors look best across a large, well-lit space and can close a small room in. That doesn’t mean small houses need pale floors, but a dark floor in a small room needs good light and pale walls to work.

In most houses, one floor colour running through the living areas and hallway looks calmer than a change at every doorway. If you want variety, change the format rather than the colour, for example herringbone in the entry and plank in the living room in the same tone.

Colour and house style

There are no rules here, only tendencies. Californian bungalows and period houses in the eastern suburbs often suit warm mid tones, because they sit well with original skirtings, fireplaces and leadlight. A deeper brown like Hidalgo works in bigger period homes with tall ceilings and good windows. Modern extensions and new builds with concrete-look tiles, white joinery and black fittings suit greys such as Smoke Grey or a pale oak. A 1970s brick veneer house with low ceilings and small windows usually benefits from something lighter.

How to test samples properly

1. Narrow it down to two or three boards in the showroom, where you can see a large run of each on the wall displays.
2. Take the samples home and put them on the floor, not against a wall. Floors are seen from above at an angle.
3. Look at them in the morning, at midday and at night under your own lights.
4. Put them next to your benchtop, joinery and a piece of furniture you’re keeping.
5. Leave them for a few days. The one you stop noticing is often the right one.

Remember that a sample is a small piece, and a floor is a lot of boards together. Variation that looks busy on a single sample usually settles down across a room, which is why seeing a larger display helps.

Next step

Bring photos of the room, a cabinet door or benchtop sample if you have one, and a sense of which way the main windows face. You’re welcome to visit our showroom at 2/1386 Toorak Road, Camberwell, to see the boards on the wall displays and take free samples home. If you would rather decide in your own light, call us on 1300 690 160 and ask us to bring samples to the measure.