Natural timber makes an attractive and hard wearing floor covering that suits all sorts of colour schemes. You can choose from a wide range of timber types, and lay them in plank, block or mosaic panel forms.

Wood flooring is a luxury looking material which can be laid over most existing floors or even solid concrete floors, and the resulting finish is both strikingly attractive and extremely hardwearing, especially if solid timber is used. It is ideal for rooms where comfort underfoot is not the top priority and style, good looks and easy cleaning are. If you already have solid timber flooring, a sand back and recoating of the floor will reveal a very attractive surface.

Wood flooring is available in several forms. The commonest are best described as mosaic, block and strip types. Mosaic flooring comes in the form of man-made panels, each consisting of slim fingers of hardwood about 8 mm (3/8 in) thick stuck together in a basket-weave pattern to produce a floor 'tile' that is typically 305 mm (12 in) or 457 mm (18 in) square. The fingers are usually mounted on a felt or nylon mesh base, and are intended to be stuck to the sub-floor with adhesive. The tiles are available in a range of timber types; some are sold pre-finished, while others have to be sealed once they have been laid.

Traditional parquet flooring blocks are solid blocks of wood, often 20-25 mm (up to 1 in) thick and usually measuring from 150 mm (6 in) to 225 mm (9 in) long and around 75 mm (3 in) wide. They can be laid in several different patterns in­cluding herringbone, basket weave and stretcher bond, and come in a range of hardwoods—oak, sapele, mahogany, teak, iroko and merbau are all common. Some are square-sided and are stuck to the floor traditionally with a bitumen-based adhesive while modern types are often tongued and grooved so they interlock as the floor covering is set in place. Most need sanding as well as sealing once they have been laid.

Strip flooring comes in two different types. The more expensive of the two comes in the form of solid planks with tongued and grooved edges, rather like miniature floorboards and designed to interlock along their lengths in much the same way as they are laid.The strips may be anything from about 450 mm up to as much as 1800 mm long; 70 or 75 mm are the commonest widths, although some are available in wider planks. Thicknesses vary, from as little as 12 mm (^in) up to 19 mm (^in) or more. Some are sold ready-sealed, but most require sanding as well as sealing to achieve a perfect finish. Some brands are designed to be put down as a floating floor over a special underlay, and are fixed together with proprietary concealed clips.

The cheaper type of strip flooring consists of a veneer of expensive (and decorative) hardwood stuck to a back­ing of cheaper softwood or plywood. The strips have machined tongued and grooved edges, so they interlock just like solid strips, and when laid it is hard to tell the two apart. However, unless the surface veneer is quite substantial, heavy use can eventually wear through the veneer to expose the core beneath. They are usually sold pre-finished.With all wood flooring sold in its unfinished state, you have the option of using clear varnish to seal the wood, or of using wood stains first.