Parquet vs plank LVT flooring

If you’re looking for a wood effect LVT floor for your home, you can choose a plank or parquet design, or both.  Ultimately, which you go for comes down to budget and how you want your finished interior to look.  In this blog we find out more about the options for each from a design perspective, as well as the difference in cost.  

Styling the plank
LVT wood effect planks are vinyl boards of varying length, designed to look much like your original wooden floorboards.  But you can still be creative with them and give your room extra dimension.  LVT planks can be installed to complement the shape of your room.  If you’re having LVT flooring in a narrow hallway for example, planks would be best stuck down vertically.  But for a larger open space, especially a modern one, like an open plan kitchen area, a diagonal installation creates an exciting, contemporary effect.

Showing: Karndean Da Vinci Limed Silk Oak with its soft grey tones installed by Flooring 4 You Ltd.  The floor was laid at a diagonal in the kitchen, finished with planks laid to a straight edge, complete with a design strip to create a striking border.

Herringbone planks and parquet
The herringbone laying pattern is really popular at the moment and we do a lot of it in the small parquet wood effect blocks format.  That said, planks can also be used to create this exciting visual effect, where smaller, thinner planks work best.  Karndean have recently added some new additions to their entry Knight Tile range which look great when installed in a herringbone pattern.  With the Knight Tile planks measuring 18” x 3” they work well for this laying pattern.
Amtico also introduced new parquet wood designs to their Spacia collection earlier this year, bringing more flexibility to those wanting a wood effect herringbone floor.  The larger of the two parquet sizes comes in at 18” x 4” which makes a striking herringbone pattern in any room.

Showing: Amtico Spacia parquet white ash is the perfect, modern, light wood effect LVT that can be installed to the on-trend herringbone pattern.

Parquet patterns
With parquet wood effect flooring there’s more than just herringbone patterns that can be installed.  The smaller wood effect blocks from the leading LVT flooring manufacturers are designed to allow for extra creativity, including patterns such as Basket Weave, Chevron, Stripwood and more.  Random planks as a style is also growing in popularity, which sees the combination of different colour LVT wood effect planks or parquet blocks, from different ranges to create one floor.  From subtle blends of greys, to something louder in a mix of browns and greys for example, multi-colour can help lift your floor’s pattern as much as the pattern itself.

Showing: Amtico Signature LVT flooring installed in a Basket Weave laying pattern to this hallway at a home in Northwich.  This is Washed Teak with its warm wooden tones and sun-bleached effect.

Mix it up from room to room  
Amtico LVT design flooring, especially the Signature collection, offers a great choice of plank sizes per style.  This means you could take the same wood tone and run it through the whole of the downstairs, creating different patterns in different rooms.  You might have a parquet herringbone installation in the hallway, leading to a long plank installation in the kitchen, with a Basket Weave running through the lounge.  Design details and borders help break up areas, which could see you combine two patterns in one room.  There really is no end to how creative you can be.
Karndean extended their Art Select range at the start of the year to include some new parquet styles, which also come in a plank format, allowing synergy throughout the home, from room to room.

Showing: A modern parquet flooring look is created with Karndean Art Select Storm Oak with its ashy grey tones.  Available in plank format as well as parquet, the same style floor can flow from room to room, regardless of the laying pattern.

Planks vs parquet by cost
When it comes to cost, an LVT floor parquet installation does come out a little more expensive compared to laying straight planks.  This is mostly due to the extra time taken to lay the floor to the required pattern – the smaller blocks are of course more time consuming to lay compared to longer planks, especially with the intricacies of the pattern.  Where extra design detail is wanted, whether a parquet or straightforward plank installation; from design strips to borders, there will be additional cost, too.  But, with years’ worth of life in them, LVT floors with their hardwearing properties are a great investment in any home, let alone being a lot  less hassle to look after.

Showing: Amtico Signature parquet in Farmhouse Oak carried throughout the hallway, kitchen and utility room of a family home in Knutsford.  

Our floor fitters are qualified to install both parquet and plank LVT flooring formats and have ample experience laying them within extra-large spaces as much as smaller rooms.  If you love wood effect LVT flooring and would like a quote for your home, get in touch with us for a free survey where we can measure your living space, talk design and prepare a quotation for you.  Alternatively, visit any of our showrooms to see samples and talk through your flooring project.