10 Warm Wood Floors
Whether they're filled with dark walnut, reclaimed wood, or a pale pine, each of these 10 homes bring out the best of the natural material we love.
1. Maple Floors Composed of Leftover "Shorts"
"People always say that Buenos Aires is like a European city [because of the baroque architecture and Italian heritage], but at the same time, we have our own culture, our own materials. This house is all B.A. In a way, I was trying to find something that represents us—and what we've got here is leather and wood and concrete." — Alejandro Sticotti, designer.
The lesson of the ancient redwood—a pillar of its ecosystem for centuries, quickly felled by humans with little understanding of their actions—is an integral part of Shope’s new home, built with reclaimed materials and filled with wood furnishings made by his own hand. Carefully crafted, the black walnut floor fits like a jigsaw puzzle.
The Tanpopo House's family tearoom is an updated take on Japan’s traditional flexible, open-plan tatami-mat room. Here, the charcoal fire pit for the teapot is an electric coil embedded in the floor, and the flooring is a durable rattan from Indonesia. Plaster oozing in-between oak planks gives the room a warm, rough-hewn feel—a Fujimori signature.
The exterior walls of the Bercy house are constructed with Thermasteel, panels made from galvanized steel and a unique resin that provide structural framing, insulation, and vapor barrier with an R-29 rating twice the required amount. "We have so much glass that we have to offset it by having very efficient ceiling and wall systems," says Bercy. "We wanted movable glass walls instead of tiny little sliding glass doors that pop off their tracks all the time," says Bercy. So he and Chen tracked down the double-glazed, insulated, six-by-nine-foot doors rom a company called Fleetwood. "They’re a little more expensive, but when you slide the heavy doors open, you’re making a profound gesture to leave the house and step outside," says Bercy. The word "doorknob" isn’t used much around the house for the simple reason that there aren’t any. "We didn’t want to clutter the house up with traditional hardware," says Bercy. Instead, they used pulls found in boats that lie flush when not in use so that the doors become hinged extensions of the walls—the idea being that the door disappears and the core appears continuous.
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