This home is a preserved and listed cottage in Barrington Hills near Chicago. The client has rescued it from a state of neglect. The wide English Oak boards are installed throughout the ground floor over under floor heating. This picture shows the delicious undulations in the floor.

How delighted is this client and his family with his floor? Well, they have bought a huge tract of land by a lakeside in Missouri upon which they are building a new house and they have asked us to make the floors to a similar design.

This is English Oak board flooring on a huge yet human scale. It is grand, luxurious yet relaxed and utterly homely. This is flooring for admiration but also for living with.

We love this floor so much we thought we'd show you the room from the other end! Since making this floor we have bought some more immense English oak logs- at the moment only up to 42 feet long! Thats 12.7 metres! Have a look. So providing we can actually get the boards into the room we can fit boards which run from skirting to skirting without a head joint in very large rooms. Many of the boards in this contract fit from wall to wall in one length.

All the pictures on web sites are optimized for display on many different computer monitor screens. On this site most are just as they were taken by the camera. However, these two pictures have been deliberately altered.

The first has been lightened just a little to show how the floor will look if finished fairly naturally. I have also raised the contrast of the garden through the windows.

This second picture shows the floor darkened. The choice of light or dark will depend upon a clients intent in respect of furnishing. Light coloured furniture contrast well when set on a darker floor. However, dark floors will show the dust more!

Even forty foot boards needed head joints in this long hallway. Though a narrow space, the boards do not look out of scale, nor do they make the space seem narrower.

If you would like to see a barn conversion carried out in similar boards click here.

This link will take you to views of a fine manor house restoration.