Room studies

Room by room, starting at the floor

Living room Wide-plank oak Kitchen Luxury vinyl plank Bedroom Carpet or pale oak Bathroom Porcelain tile Entryway Slate or porcelain Basement Carpet tile or LVP

The plan

Six rooms, six different answers. Hover or tab through the plan to see what each room asks of its floor, then open the room study.

01 Living room Wide-plank oak
02 Kitchen Luxury vinyl plank
03 Bedroom Carpet or pale oak
04 Bathroom Porcelain tile
05 Entryway Slate or porcelain
06 Basement Carpet tile or LVP

The studies

Six rooms in detail

01 Wide-plank white oak

Editorial kitchen with pale oak plank flooring, soft sage cabinets and a marble counter in morning light.

Kitchen oak

The kitchen is the one room where the floor is a tool as much as a surface. Choose it for the work, then make it beautiful.

02 Walnut parquet

Living room with a walnut herringbone floor, a cream armchair, linen curtains and a low stone coffee table.

Living room walnut

The living room floor is the one you actually see: under the sofa, around the rug, in the low winter light. It should be the calmest decision in the room.

03 Pale gray-washed oak

Calm bedroom with pale gray-washed oak flooring, a low bed with white linen and a sage throw in afternoon light.

Bedroom oak

The bedroom floor is met barefoot, in the dark, before the day starts. Warmth and quiet matter more here than in any other room.

04 Matte porcelain tile

Spa-like bathroom with warm gray porcelain tile, a freestanding tub, sage glazed wall tile and brass fittings.

Bathroom gray

Water decides most of the bathroom floor. The remaining decisions are warmth, grip and how the grout lines make the room feel.

05 Slate tile

Entryway with dark slate tile, an oak console, a round mirror, a woven basket and a striped runner rug.

Entryway gray

Every visitor meets the entryway floor before they meet you. It is also the floor that takes the most grit, so choose for weather and then soften it.

06 Carpet tile

Finished basement lounge with soft gray carpet, a sage sofa, oak shelving and daylight from a high window.

Basement gray

A basement floor is a moisture decision before it is a design decision. Get the slab right, then choose the warmest surface that can live there.

How to use a room study

Read it in this order

Start with the constraint, not the photograph. Every room has one thing that cannot be argued with: water in a kitchen, a concrete slab in a basement, a front door that opens directly into the living room. Find that sentence in the study and let it eliminate options before you fall in love with a sample.

Then look at the floor tone. Each study names the tone it uses and shows the palette beside it, so you can see whether the room's warmth comes from the wood or from the walls. If your existing floor is a different tone, the palette is the part to borrow and the floor is the part to translate.

Finally, use the floor swap. It is deliberately plain: four floors, one room, no styling to distract you. Change the floor and watch whether the room becomes warmer, cooler or busier. That reaction is the most useful information on the page.

If you are still choosing, the color bench takes the floor tone and shows which walls and trims will flatter it. If the floor is fixed and the cabinets are the question, the piece on floors and cabinets is the place to start.