When we first toured the house we would call our home, I was greeted with pale pink as far as the eye could see. The walls and wainscoting were pink as was the wall to wall shag carpeting. The archway closing in the space immediately in front of the door didn’t help from feeling like I was drowning in a bottle of calamine lotion. What kept my eye moving forward though was a charming original carved wooden bannister and crystal basket chandelier which hinted at the potential of the home.
By the time we had closed on the house, the owners had torn up the carpet in effort to get the house ready to put on the market and the original hardwood was revealed, including a pleasant surprise of stunning parquet in the foyer. I wanted to preserve it but because we were altering the floorplan so extensively (removing the archway and extending the foyer into where original kitchen stood), I decided to embrace the opportunity and went for one of my favourite flooring motifs of all time: harlequin.
I love the black and white diamond pattern so much I even incorporated it into the dancefloor at my wedding using a vinyl covering to hide the ballroom’s blonde wood floor.
The dramatic floor pattern consisting of 12x12 rudy black and bianco thassos marble tiles from Marble Granite Depot laid in a diamond pattern extends right from the front door to the entry into the kitchen and family room creating a dramatic sightline that feels classic and glamorous. A border of black marble helps punctuate the pattern and conceals the fact that the archways are not all the same size.
One thing to note if you’re going for such a dramatic pattern with stone flooring, is to hire an excellent installer. Natural stone is rarely a solid colour through and through, which is definitely the case for the rudy black tiles from Marble Granite Depot that I selected (they have a milky white veining that was more prominent in some tiles than in others). You need an installer with a discerning eye who will stagger the amount of veining evenly across the room so the impression looks consistent throughout. It’s all about going the extra mile and approving the exact layout of each stone before laying anything down to avoid costly surprises!
(Foyer photo: Stacey Brandford, Wedding photos: Storey Wilkins)
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