In depthChoosing golden engineered oak
Golden oak is the tone that oak arrives at on its own once a natural board has seen a few years of daylight, so choosing it new means choosing where the floor will settle rather than where it starts. Three boards cover the range. The Ascot Golden Oak is a narrow 125 mm plank in random lengths, brushed with a matt lacquer, and reads as a traditional strip floor. The Weybridge Golden Wheat is a wide 190 mm by 1900 mm plank with the same brushed, matt lacquered surface, and reads as a modern plank floor. The Victorian Antique Golden Brown is 220 mm wide, deep brushed and hard wax oiled, with the aged variation of the antique range.
The choice between them is mostly about the room. Narrow boards suit smaller rooms and period houses, where a wide plank can look out of scale; wide planks suit open-plan spaces where the fewer joints let the colour read as one surface. All three are 14 or 15 mm thick, tongue and groove, micro-bevelled and listed as compatible with underfloor heating. Wear layers are 3 mm on the two lacquered boards and 4 mm on the oiled antique board, and every board carries a 15 year manufacturer's warranty.
On maintenance the finishes split the same way as elsewhere in the engineered range: the lacquered boards are wiped clean and refinished as a whole floor when the time comes; the oiled board can be re-oiled locally where it has worn. Neither finish likes standing water, and the cleaning guidance for wood floors is low moisture throughout.
If the room already has a lot of warm timber in it, doors, a staircase, a kitchen, a golden floor can tip it into too much of one thing. In that case the natural oak range gives the same warmth a step paler.
The boards named above
Shop by category
