David Gunton's Hardwood Floors, hardwood flooring, parquet, marquetry and boards, especially wideboards, in oak, ash, maple, beech, walnut, cherry, and many other woods.

Huge Medallion

David Gunton designed this floor for a music room in a private home in Cheshire. The room is an extension to the main house. The idea behind it is that, as a stranger approaches the room through a short corridor, attention is drawn to the huge decorative medallion, distracting attention from the main attraction, a concert hall sized organ!

By clicking on most pictures on this site you can see a larger version.

As you approach the room through the short corridor your attention is drawn to the unusual sight of the huge parquet medallion.

The medallion is 3 metres across. It is made of Sipo Mahogany, European Oak, White Ash, Guatambu, and ringed with a band of Wenge.

The dome effect appears more exaggerated in this photo than in others. It is just as apparent when you are stood upom the floor. A wonderful trompe l'oeil.

The surrounding field of oak parquet is in a beautiful, non-directional pattern. Each piece of that design has been carefully selected for colour and grain structure. In this sort of work, whilst elaborate grain patterns can be useful, as here with the mahogany, wilder grain structures and variable colours within some species, such as oak, or worse, olive wood, only serve to confuse the pattern rather than assist it.

Take note of the care taken in ensuring the grain patterns run correctly. In the making of such designs, whilst the wood colours create the contrasts and their grain patterns can add much to the image, in essence it is the design, the geometry, that matters most. Careless choice of the grain in the elements can spoil the image.

OK. So here is the organ! Still covered by protection and, as yet lacking its pipes. Not the sort of musical instrument normally found in a private house.

Wonderful!

(Image rather poor because it had to be brightened in Photoshop to show up the organ. We are skilled woodworkers, not skilled web page builders! )