Hardwood Floor Medallions - Color Compatibility with the Surrounding Floor

One of the most important issues when using hardwood floor medallions inside hardwood flooring installations is the color compatibility.

One rule would be - must have the wood specie the hardwood flooring is made of inside the medallion. It usually happens like this but it is not enough.

The other rule would be - the transition from the surrounding hardwood floor to the medallion interior shouldn't be abrupt.


The image below shows a dark hardwood flooring with a wood medallion inlay. The essence the hardwood flooring is made of can be found inside the medallion itself. The background color is red. The separations inside the medallion are made of a pure white wood.

Hardwood Floor Medallions - Proportionality Issues

Using a medallion inside a hardwood flooring (or parquet flooring) must be done carefully. One of the reasons is the PROPORTIONALITY.

That is taking into account of the mathematical relation between the size of the room and the size of the hardwood floor medallion to be installed.

A drawing done to scale could help a lot.

Below are two images showing the first situation - a small medallion "thrown" in a large room and second situation a new arrangement to correct the mistake.

Image with the first situation can be easily found on the web.

Hardwood Floor Medallions - Terminology

The ”Hardwood Floor Medallion” is a term mainly used in the US. Also used there are ”Wood Floor Medallions”, ”Wood Medallions”. The UK, for example, takes the term ”Parquet Motifs”. In France we find ”Rosaces Parquet”. In Italy there are ”Rosoni Parquet” or ”Centrostanza Intarsiati”.

All the above terms refer to a piece of decorative parquetry displaying motifs of various origins, with inlays used inside parquet flooring or hardwood flooring (a larger term) installations with aesthetic purposes.