How to style parquet flooring

Parquet-style flooring is a beautiful addition to any home, and incorporating it into the overall style of your space can add sophistication and elegance to a room. This traditional flooring has a rich history of being used in palaces, five-star hotels, castles and more, and is still extremely common in the richest homes in Europe – what’s not to love (and, it's a great way into achieving a French country style in your home!)?

We’ll take you through what parquet flooring is, the different designs that can be created with parquet style flooring, as well as how you can incorporate parquet flooring design into your home and try out lots of different parquet flooring ideas. Let’s jump headfirst into the creative world of flooring!

What is parquet flooring?

Parquet flooring is a traditional style of flooring that uses hardwood planks to create various decorative patterns, including herringbone, chevron, Versailles, and Chantilly. Historically, solid wood flooring was used for parquet flooring, but nowadays you can also use laminate, luxury vinyl, or engineered wood as well as solid floorboards. Here at Tapi, we stock lots of different patterns in our vinyl collection, and you can see herringbone laminate, LVT and engineered wood options too!

It was a popular choice with European aristocracy during the 1600s because it was a low-maintenance alternative to decorative marble floors. Intricate and elegant, parquet flooring is a popular choice for formal settings like living rooms, dining rooms, and foyers. Also known as wooden mosaic flooring, parquet flooring is made from wooden boards that are cut into tiles in various shapes, including squares, diamonds, triangles, and rhombuses.

Different parquet flooring designs

With so many designs to choose from, you can create any effect you wish! However, some styles are more common than others.

Herringbone parquet flooring design

Herringbone flooring is a classic flooring design style, used in both modern and traditional homes around Europe for its simple elegance. Herringbone creates a zig-zag pattern using short boards, and there are different ways you can change the pattern to make it more unique, such as doubling up the boards to create a double herringbone pattern or using wider boards to create a more simplistic look.

Chevron parquet flooring design

Chevron parquet uses the same boards as used for herringbone flooring, but cuts them at an angle, normally 30° or 45°, and lines the boards up at the cut to create a consistent row of arrows. You can create wider or slimmer runs depending on the angle at which you cut the boards, but this is a very chic look that is used most commonly in Parisian apartments. Although similar to herringbone, they do have their differences, which you can read more about in our guide to herringbone vs chevron flooring.

Panelled parquet flooring design

Panelled parquet flooring creates panels of a chosen design and places these in continuous patterns – the most common design used for panelled parquet is the Versailles panel, so called because it was used in the Versailles Palace in France where this style first began. This consists of a weaving pattern in the middle, outlined by a square of thin boards, which is repeated around the room.

Inlaid parquet flooring design

Inlaid parquet flooring creates more complex patterns, such as basket weaves and mansion weaves, which are continuous patterns that aren’t boxed in like panelled parquet. The pattern looks to be inlaid into the flooring because of the way the boards are cut at different angles. This is also where additional elements like metalwork can be added in to add even more complexity and grandeur.

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Parquet flooring ideas

So how do you go about incorporating parquet flooring into your interior design? With so many parquet flooring designs to pick from and work with, we’re here to help you with plenty of our classic tips and tricks.

How to work with traditional parquet-style flooring

If you already have parquet flooring in your home – first of all, lucky you! – you’re going to want to keep that flooring looking as good as new, and highlight it as one of the main features of your room. So, to do this, you won’t want to cover it up with large area rugs or too much furniture. Simplicity in your furniture and décor will allow the parquet flooring to be seen and appreciated without being dwarfed by other elements in the room.

Because parquet flooring is also very traditional, you can keep a good balance in the room by keeping your walls much simpler, opting for a block colour or minimalist wallpaper. However, if you want to really lean into the traditional look, maybe opt for a bold wallpaper or half-panelled walls that will bring the flooring up onto the walls too. It’s best to look after your flooring with plenty of furniture feet covers and a regular cleaning schedule, depending on what type of flooring you’re working with – our care guides have plenty of helpful information for looking after lots of flooring types.

How to make parquet floors look modern

If you want to modernise your parquet flooring, or if you want to create your own parquet flooring look in your contemporary home, then the best place to start is with the type of flooring you want to use – do you want to use solid wood, or something a little more practical like laminate? Do you want to opt for a lighter-coloured wood to add more brightness and warmth to your room, or do you want to go more traditional with a darker colour, to add sophistication and depth? You can also use inspiration from our Flooring Ideas page to see how other Tapi customers have used our products to create their dream flooring.

Create your own parquet flooring design

There are so many different parquet flooring designs you can look into, and there are lots of different floor types to pick from today as well. Why not pop into your local Tapi store and speak to one of our floorologists about the different options we have in store, or order some free samples of any flooring you like the look of to see how it will fit in with your home’s lighting and décor? You can also always book a free home visit for our specialists to come to you, with plenty of samples and flooring knowledge to help you pick what’s best for your home.

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