Browse our Catalog to see and learn about the beauty, quality and craftsmanship of a Carlisle floor.
The appeal of colonial flooring
During America’s colonial times, woodworkers fashioned floors from long, wide planks cut from the plentiful timbers in old-growth forests. In addition to the size of the floorboards, colonial flooring was marked by timbers with more knots and variations in color and grain that added considerable character to the floor.
Today, homeowners seeking colonial hardwood flooring can once again find wide plank, rustic floorboards at Carlisle Wide Plank Floors. We offer colonial flooring in a range of hardwoods and pine, with a proprietary grading system that lets you determine the amount of character you want in the wood, and a virtually unlimited selection of light and dark hardwood floor colors. At Carlisle, you can design colonial flooring that will become a defining feature of your interior and a surface that will set the stage for your life at home.
What is colonial flooring?
What wood is best for colonial flooring?
Pine is the way to go if you’re looking for strict historical accuracy, as most colonial flooring was originally cut from pine trees. But any of our hardwoods at Carlisle can be used to create a colonial-style floor.
Can colonial flooring be made with engineered floorboards?
Yes. Carlisle makes engineered floors that are among the best products available on the market today. We offer engineered floorboards up to 10” wide and 12’ long – much wider and longer than our competitors – to help create the look of colonial flooring.
How is colonial flooring made today?
Homeowners seeking colonial flooring have several options. At Carlisle, we offer wide plank floors with floorboards up to 20” in width (depending on the species of wood) and up to 12’ in length – making it easy to recreate the look of colonial flooring. We also offer hardwood floor texture techniques that can make new floorboards look like old floors, including a technique that uses a wood texture brush to wear away the softer grains and produce the look of floors that have been lived on for centuries. Additionally, Carlisle offers several types of reclaimed floors made from boards salvaged from old buildings, farms and factories. These timbers have all the imperfections of floors produced more than a century ago and can help to create authentic colonial flooring.
What is colonial flooring?
Colonial flooring recreates the look of floors produced during America’s colonial period. These surfaces were created with floorboards that are much longer and wider than today’s standard commercial flooring. The boards also featured more knots, mineral streaks, ingrown bark and grain and color variation for a more rustic appearance.
Customizing your colonial flooring
At Carlisle, there are many ways to customize your colonial floor to create a one-of-a-kind surface.
Your choice of wood a Carlisle includes 10 species of hardwood and 3 species of pine, as well as 6 types of reclaimed flooring that can recreate the rustic look of colonial flooring. Our Eastern White Pine is especially sought after for its unique character, which appealed to early New England colonists as well.
Depending on the type of wood you choose, the width of your floorboards may range from 4” to 20”, though 8” is the average width for a Carlisle floor. The wider your boards, the more spacious the room will feel. Consistent widths produce a more formal appearance, while varying the widths can produce a more rustic appearance in colonial flooring.
The grade of your wood can give it a more rustic appearance. Our Original Grade features more character like knots and color or grain variation for a more casual look, while our Heirloom Grade features fewer variations and imperfections for a more formal and uniform appearance.
Color is a significant design choice in colonial flooring. We offer virtually unlimited color choices for stains, in addition to clear and amber finishes that help preserve the natural color within the hardwood or pine of your choice.
Textured wood flooring helps to give modern floorboards the look of floors that have been lived on for generations or centuries. Techniques like hand-scraped edges, Hit or Miss marks and brushed texturing reproduce the imperfections in floorboards left by early sawmills as well as the aged appearance of boards that have been worn down by foot traffic and time.
Why choose colonial flooring from Carlisle?
When you come to Carlisle for colonial flooring, you’ll be working with the #1 provider of handcrafted wide plank floors in America. For more than half a century, we have relied on time-honored processes and the most reliable timber from American forests to produce masterpieces in wood that can be found in stylish homes and businesses throughout the world. Your Carlisle floor will be the perfect reflection of your sense of style and beauty, and a central design feature of your home that will delight you every time you enter the room.
We produce every Carlisle floor with a strong commitment to sustainability, strategically sourcing timber from growers and sawyers who share our values. Our forest-to-floor ethic ensures that we can preserve natural resources while harvesting the best timbers to produce wide plank floors of the highest quality.
