Platinum List 2015: Flooring & Decking

Indoor floors and outdoor surfaces are the perennial workhorses of any ocean home. We walk on them, sit on them, drop things on them, leave sand on them, entertain on them, scuff them and then sweep or hose them down at the end of a busy day.

But durable interior and hardwearing exterior flooring and decking can also be beautiful as well as practical thanks to an array of natural and manmade options currently on the market.

While natural wood, stone and tile remain kings of the coastal castle, a raft of clever and surprisingly realistic imitations are winning accolades for their high-quality, high-impact and high-performance features.

While the judges for Ocean Home’s Platinum List 2015 were impressed by several artificial interior wood floors, they awarded the highest score to the all-natural and luxurious reclaimed antique wood flooring by Goodwin.

While industry standards require at least six growth rings per inch of wood (the more growth rings, the stronger the wood), Goodwin offers premium grades with eight or more growth rings per inch.

A fusion of ecologically harvested wood species – including 200-year-old heart pine and heart cypress – with high-tech expertise and design, Goodwin creates handcrafted floors for some of the world’s most beautiful homes. heartpine.com

Outside, it’s a whole different story, with judges opting for ingenious man-made replacements for wood, stone and tile that look and feel just like the real thing.

The recently released TUX outdoor slab collection by Techo-Bloc delivers the vintage elegance of classic checkerboard tiling to outdoor terraces and patios.

The slabs are resistant to de-icing salt, engineered to withstand the harshest coastal climates and look striking on patios, pool decks and surfaces without vehicular traffic.

Techo-Bloc’s wood lookalike Borealis wall/edge collection also scored highly for its use in garden walls and flowerbeds, offering the aesthetic of wood with the practicality and durability of concrete. techo-bloc.com

Newer generation Trex deck boards (Transcend, Enhance and Trex Select), in long-lasting color palettes and natural wood grain patterns, also impressed judges with their improved performance, enhanced aesthetics and resistance to fading, staining, scratching and mold. trex.com

Image Credits: Photo by Mario C. Melillo.