Medallions
Custom Wood Floor Medallions
A medallion is the one piece of a house that people stand still and look down at. Ours are drawn to the room, cut from solid hardwood, and let into the floor flush, so the surface stays one plane.
Rose compass
The rose compass medallion
Eight long points, four cardinal letters, acanthus scrolls off the diagonal, ringed in dark stringing. The one shown here is black walnut in a hard maple field, which is a deliberate pairing: maple is pale and close-grained enough to hold a crisp edge, walnut is dark enough to keep the points readable from across the room.
A rose compass suits a foyer, a rotunda or the center of a landing, anywhere the floor is seen from several directions at once. Diameter follows the room.
The rose compass project in full
Geometric
Star parquet medallions
The interlaced star is two squares woven through each other into eight points, cut in hard maple, banded in padauk, with a pinwheel rosette at the center and a hickory field around it. Geometry like this is unforgiving: every one of those long miters has to close, or the whole figure looks tired.
Star, sunburst, monogram and custom geometry all follow the same route. You bring a motif, a rug, a ceiling detail or a family mark; we draw it at floor scale and tell you honestly where it will need simplifying to survive being walked on.
Stone
Marble and mosaic
Not every medallion is wood. The quatrefoil shown here is dark marble with light stone tracery, framed by a border band and set into a travertine field, cut so the joints line through with the surrounding tile. Where a wood floor meets stone, the two can be joined along a curve instead of a straight run.
The curved wood-to-stone transition
Cost
What a custom hardwood medallion costs
Price follows four things, in roughly this order of impact: diameter, number of individual pieces, species, and whether the medallion goes into a new floor or into an existing one. A simple four-species circle and a scrolled compass rose of the same diameter are different orders of work, and the drawing stage is where that becomes clear.
We quote each medallion after the drawing, so the number you get is for your piece rather than a category average.
The commission
What a medallion commission includes
- A scaled drawing of the medallion in your room, with diameter checked against sightlines and furniture
- Species selection, samples viewed on your floor in daylight
- Hand cutting and dry assembly of every piece before glue-up
- Routing into an existing floor where the medallion is going into a finished room
- Flush installation, so the medallion and the field sand as one surface
- Sanding and finishing across the joint
Questions
Before a medallion commission
How much does a custom wood floor medallion cost?
Four things drive the price, roughly in this order: diameter, the number of individual pieces in the design, the species used, and whether the medallion goes into a new floor or is routed into an existing one. A simple four-species circle and a scrolled compass rose of the same diameter are very different amounts of work. We price each medallion after the drawing, so the figure covers your piece rather than an average.
How long does a custom floor or medallion take?
The schedule has four parts: the drawing and approval, sourcing the wood, bench work in the shop, and installation on site. Bench work is usually the longest of the four and the one clients underestimate, since every joint is cut and fitted dry before it is glued. We give you a schedule with the estimate, once the design is settled and the material is known.
Can a medallion or border go into a floor I already have?
Yes, and it is a common way to do this work. The outline is routed into the existing boards, the piece is set and glued, and the area is then sanded flat and refinished so it reads as original to the house rather than as a patch. Before quoting, we check the floor on site for thickness remaining above the tongue and for how many times it has already been sanded, since that determines whether refinishing across the joint is possible.
Do you combine wood with stone or tile?
Yes, and the joint between them is worth designing rather than covering. A wood floor and a stone floor can meet along a curve, each side scribed to the other and finished flush, instead of being separated by a metal strip. We have also set stone mosaic medallions into tile fields, cut so the joints line through with the surrounding material.
Commissions
Commission a medallion
Send the room, the rough diameter you have in mind and any image that shows the look you want. The drawing comes first, then the estimate.