We’re proud to announce that our English Oak floor, Galion, has been announced as ‘Best Hard Flooring’ in the Livingetc Style Awards 2022! Beating not only our wooden flooring competitors, but vinyl, LVT and tiles amongst others.
Livingetc is prestigious modern home and design magazine that celebrates all things interiors. With UK and USA versions, the magazine has an international presence and has grown into a household name in the design world.
This year the awards are a celebration of the best modern home design, with prizes being awarded to products that enhance lives and feelings, rather than just being functional.
With a field of hundreds of entrants across all manner of interior category, the expert panel of judges arrived at Galion at in the Best Hard Flooring section.
The expert panel was made up of Livingetc editor Pip Rich, Livingetc Editorial Director Sarah Spiteri, designers Alice Temperley, Eva Sonaike and Staffan Tollgard and journalist, broadcaster and tastemaker Pandora Sykes. Spending the day together at London’s Beaverbrook Townhouse, they compiled a list of the most well-designed home products available to buy today.
‘It looks luxurious, with a great richness and warmth,’ said Alice Temperley when speaking about our Galion English Oak floor.
Our fellow winners include The Arbor Sofa by Matthew Hilton for the Conran Shop, the National Trust Floor Lamp by Anglepoise and Faded Terracotta by Kelly Wearstler for Farrow and Ball. We’re thrilled to feature alongside these other exemplary Great British Brands as we pride ourselves on showcasing the best of British crafting.
You can see a full list of winners on Livingetc’s website, here: https://www.livingetc.com/style-awards-2022
What is Galion?
English Oak is an exceptional variety and is revered for being the finest oak in this species.
Due to being wilder, more naturally grown, this wood features an incredible natural grain pattern throughout the logs. It’s also slowly grown, meaning that the growth rings inside are much tighter than in quicker grown woods, with the hue being richer in colour as a result too.
Perhaps most importantly, when quarter sawn, this wood features the broadest medullary rays of any oak. These are beautiful natural veins that run across the planks.
Handcrafted in our British workshops, Galion is created using this incredibly special, rare and sustainably sourced English Oak.
We saw our Galion logs in the same manner which they have done for hundreds of years. This method is known as quarter sawing. By doing this you get the best stability, as quarter sawn Oak mainly moves in its thickness and not in its width. By quarter sawing this English Oak you also get the most wonderful grain patterns throughout the wood, wonderfully thick medullary rays, sometimes wild and wondering grain patterns and all pulled together with a rich, warm tones that are unique to Galion.
Our Galion planks are dimensionally impressive and amongst the largest in our Woodworks collections. Provided as random width floor, the different widths add interest to the floor, which was how floors were always made pre-20th century. The narrower widths adding scale and proportion to the wider boards.
Also, in keeping with the most traditional look possible, our artisans hand roll every edge with a metal roller. This gives a careful pillowed effect to each edge, which is the most natural look of all edges.
The surface of the floor is undulating, with a huge amount of natural shaping and movement throughout. Each board is different from the next, with its own individual movement, linking your project back to nature. This also reflects the shaping you would come to expect with an antique or reclaimed floor and pays homage to these centuries-old originals, which is a signature of our Woodworks craftsmanship.
For all of these reasons it is easy to see why Galion has seen success in the Livingetc awards and we are incredibly proud to be able to craft this floor.
You can find discover a full specification sheet of Galion, and even order free samples, by clicking below.