How to Mix Materials: Wood Tones, Metals & Flooring Explained

Dear Alice | Interior Design

This episode of Dear Alice Interior Design explores how to thoughtfully mix materials like wood tones, metals, flooring, cabinetry, and fini

Key takeaways

• Walnut-stained hardwood floors are recommended for their timeless appeal and ability to mix well with other materials without showing dirt or wear.
• Avoid overly dark flooring; medium-toned woods like walnut provide better balance and versatility.

Main topics

• Mixing wood tones in flooring
• Using tile in entryways and wet areas

Notable quotes

Go walnut on the flooring. That's the million dollar advice of the day.

Conclusion

Thoughtful material mixing—especially with walnut flooring, layered ti

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Dear Alice. If you're new here, welcome. We're so glad you found us. We are the designers behind Alice Lane and Alice Lane Interior Design and we've been doing this for about 20 years, not the podcast, but designing. Speaker 1 (0:16) And Speaker 2 (0:16) so we do custom homes, remodels, interiors, and every week we share the design principles and mistakes and insider knowledge that we are using every day with our own clients. And we're not gatekeeping. We're just sharing everything we can. And it's fun for us to get together and do this. It's like a book club with interior designers. It is. Yeah, we love doing it. And we just wanted to say welcome. We're glad you're here. If you want to see the work we're doing, it's on Alice Lane Home. That's our store side. We design, manufacture our own product. And we have a beautiful retail store in the Salt Lake City area. And then our interior design firm is at Alice Lane Interiors. And you can see the projects we're working on over there. Today, this is actually a question that we got from one of the listeners, and they wanted to know about how to mix metals. This Speaker 3 (1:06) question comes up a lot. How do I mix materials, whether it's on the skeleton of my house, the woods I pick, to the tiles I pick, to those things that are fixed to the walls. But in addition, people always ask, how do I mix materials when it comes to the softer coverings, you know, the furnishings, the fabrics, the window treatments. And so we want to start to dive into this arena. with you guys because we do get so many questions on this, but specifically today, it was kind of springboarded because people want to know how to mix metals. And so we're Speaker 2 (1:33) going Speaker 3 (1:33) to get into it. Speaker 2 (1:34) Yeah, we are. But first, we're going to start with mixing flooring because very rarely are we going to do a home where it's just all wood floors throughout or all marble floors throughout. And so we're going to just tell you our favorite zones to do what in because I think the most interesting homes are going to have a mix of materials underfoot. And we always start with the ground in interior design. So starting from the ground up. Starting from the ground up. Let's talk about how we mix flooring. Speaker 3 (1:59) Just on top of what Jess just said, we've done so many homes over the years. And we've done so many different types of floorings. And we've seen what's stayed. And we've seen what's come back and what's mixed well. So for floorings, I know that everybody's like kind of left the white oak, kind of that pale arena. And we're into darker. I just want to say walnut. For wood floors. Walnut stain is so beautiful, whether that's on a walnut species of wood. You say you love the grain of oak, but you just take it to a walnut colored stain. It has forever and always been timeless. Our first showroom had a walnut floor and everything looked good on that. Regardless of style, regardless of pattern, it always mixed well with walnut. In general, all of our current projects moving forward, and honestly, for the last couple of years, we have been trying to go toward this warmer. deeper, probably more of a medium tone. Just because you don't want going too dark on your floor on that Speaker 2 (2:52) walnut, Speaker 3 (2:52) it will show everything. You lived with a Brazilian cherry Speaker 2 (2:55) floor in Speaker 3 (2:56) your Speaker 2 (2:56) first Speaker 3 (2:57) home and it showed everything. You worked for your Speaker 2 (2:58) floor. I did. I mopped twice a day. So Speaker 3 (3:01) going too dark is not the way to go. So if you're a designer or you're thinking, I'm going to go really, really dark for contrast, save it for a furniture piece. Don't do it on your floor. Stay in that medium tone where you can kind of take advantage of some of the highs and the lows. the deeper parts and some even the blonder greens that are happening in a walnut because it's so much easier to mix other materials with that than honestly any other wood stainer species Speaker 2 (3:24) I've ever used. And you'll have no regrets. No regrets. Yeah. That's the million dollar advice of the day. If you stop listening now, you're welcome. That was a great podcast. We'll Speaker 3 (3:32) see you Speaker 2 (3:32) next Thursday. Yeah. Yeah. Go walnut on the flooring. So besides walnut being the answer. for our hardwood that we are paying forward. Let's also tell them how we're going to mix and where we're going to mix in other flooring. Well, Speaker 3 (3:47) usually for like the majority percentage of the home, we are using hardwood just because it's the softest. It's, I think it's the warmest too. visually and temperature wise, I think it's just more comfortable to stand on. So you're really going to have that in your main living spaces. Oftentimes it'll go into your kitchen. Where we start to introduce tile, which is a really, really fun game. We always try and get it in the entry. I love a tiled entry. So we'll try and get that in the entry. And I think that that's a good place to kind of catch the dust. It's easier to mop. Tile is where you're going to want to stay in that arena. And whenever we are doing a tile floor in an entry, it's usually with three stones. Sometimes we'll do two stones, but most of the time it's more fun when we can get a third one in there just for the complexity of the design and the mixture of the materials. Because then you can have more of a white marble with an interesting vein. You can get a dark marble in there with an interesting white vein, but then you can add the warmth or the green or the other thing that's going to give the personality to that little triage when you're thinking about that specific house and homeowner. I love a third marble. I do too. In there. Yeah. It's so fun. It's smart. Even Speaker 2 (4:50) if Speaker 3 (4:50) it's Speaker 2 (4:50) just Speaker 3 (4:50) a liner or a dot or something. Whenever you see like a London mosaics, there's multiple colors in there and they all are kind of muted, but a lot of them do have some color in it, like a cognac or like a little yellow, yellow something in there just as a peekaboo surprise that feels was quarried a million years ago. Speaker 2 (5:09) So Speaker 3 (5:09) when you are picking your marbles, don't limit yourself to just two. I would give yourself that third one because when you start to mix other materials with that, you're giving yourself even more temperatures and veins and interest to puppy pile on top of when you're playing the pattern game. Other places to do that tile, and the more times I think that you can play these little games of just adding variety to your floor plan is your entry. I love tile. Little powder rooms, bathrooms are obviously assumed just because it's wet in there. Pantries. I love it when you see a tile patterned Speaker 2 (5:41) in a Speaker 3 (5:42) pantry. Where else do you love to see a tile pattern? A Speaker 2 (5:45) laundry room if it's the main floor. Sometimes the laundry mud hall kind of blend together, but it is your entry as far as a homeowner goes. You're generally coming in from the garage. And so I think giving yourself a really cute landing pad there. But like you said, if you're coming in with... wet wellies on or snow boots or whatever. It's really weather friendly. Yeah. I also just love sort of the click of heels when it comes to either entry, a back door or a front door. Yeah. I think it's really, really lovely. Speaker 3 (6:11) Talked about wood. We've talked about tile as far as that flooring layer. Like you're going to, again, that foundation is going to allow for so much information, like patterns to be played on top of that. And so probably the next thing that people ask about is how do I know when to mix cabinetry? whether it's painted, whether it's a wood stain. And I think this is a good question as you go space by space by space and understanding your style. Some people have very few things that are stain grade because they just love a painted. Speaker 1 (6:41) They Speaker 3 (6:41) love a painted cabinetry. And when I go through their Pinterest board and talk to them, it's pretty clear to me. I'm like, okay, they love a painted finish. I'm going to have to sneak some of these warm stains in through my furniture or through the island because they're going to want an all painted kitchen. I think don't negate the stains happening at eye level. You're going to see that at ground level. I really do love seeing a stained cabinetry somewhere. I have one, even like my little tiny bathroom that has like the burl walnut. Imagine Speaker 2 (7:10)