Can you post a pic of your sofa? What kind of red? Black red and fawn/beige is a great colour scheme. I'm picturing a light airy room with gorgeous wood floors, a picture would really help. So are the windows big? Do you want curtains or blinds? You can do roller blinds to cut the sun and then have blackout, either curtains or blinds. Or you can do sheer curtains, with blackouts. Floral or geometric pattern?

What you are referring to is proper "parquetry" and the labour is generally costly as it requires more attention to detail and is more time consuming... you may be able to manage cost depending on your choice of timber (note parquetry now also comes in engineered timber which can be a bit less) but the labour will be costly regardless... my google search of "parquetry flooring Sydney" came up with a few results so hopefully you can find someone there after a few enquiries... good luck! :)

Our last house and our current house both had wood floors and lots of wood furniture. Using area rugs (I've got a weakness for oriental rugs) provides separation between the floors and the furniture. And if the walls are light, as in LesleyH's photo above, you will certainly not feel overwhelmed with wood. The only time there's an issue in my mind is when the walls are also wood clad - that can be a bit confronting and needs management.

Hi, Just want to share some advice I wish I had before I had all of my floors recovered . The carpet for the bedrooms stairs and hall was straightforward so was as quoted which also included the installation. I was also quoted for Hydrocork which was recommended to me as a floating flooring by a large well known flooring company here in New Zealand - disaster - it is now 7 months on and I still have the faulty floor down and It looks like I am going to be $10,000.00 while retailers, installers and suppliers duck and dive. Just make sure you get a Scope for the installation and find out what happens when either the product or installation is faulty - remembering that not all faults with flooring show up immediately. I just don’t want anyone else to go through this.