By Melissa Rayworth (CP) – 6 days ago

What’s old — centuries old, even — is suddenly new again in home design. Wood, that ancient staple of interior decorating, has been getting fresh attention in every room of the house.

Designers are mixing salvaged barn doors with new synthetic flooring that looks strikingly like the real thing. At the same time, faux wood-grain wallpaper and upholstery offer a nod to nature without hiding their artificiality.

Designer and HGTV host Genevieve Gorder calls wood “the one medium that is eternal.”

“It’s been in interiors since the beginning of time and it’s sitting in our front yards,” she says. “There’s nothing else like it.”

Gorder, along with fellow designers Candice Olson and Vern Yip, judges the work of fledgling designers each week on HGTV’s “Design Star.” When we asked these experts which style ideas have their attention right now, all three mentioned wood.

Wood is both natural and trend-proof, Olson says, and can bring a much-needed warmth and timelessness to modern rooms. Even people who love modern style, she says, don’t want a home “where everything looks like George Jetson lives there.”

Likewise, in more traditional rooms, wood is being used in ways that add a dose of edgier style without clashing.

LUMBER AND LOGS

Years ago, Olson saw an entire wall of stacked wood in a building in Europe. The image stuck with the Canadian designer. She eventually created her own variations, arranging chopped logs from fallen trees within frames that are 15 centimetres deep.

Lumber, especially the low grades that might otherwise be discarded by builders, can be used the same way.

Gorder loves the look: “Really inexpensive,” she says, and “really powerful.”

Whether dominating a whole wall or serving as an accent, these pieces of wood can be arranged to form a smooth surface or poke out from the wall at different lengths, creating a pattern.

The contrast between order and chaos is central to the appeal: Essentially, “it’s a pile of sticks,” Olson says, but laid out “in an orderly, modern, refined way.”

WOODEN WALLS AND CEILINGS

Several years back, Yip drew praise for designing a room with one wall covered in planks. “Anytime you have an entire wall of one material, wood or something else, it’s so striking,” he says.

It caught on. Wood flooring is now being used to cover walls and ceilings. Old wooden platforms, says Yip, can also be hung up as art.

That showcases a beautiful wood’s texture and colour, Olson says. “It’s almost like it gets wasted on the floor,” she says.

A wall or ceiling done in a given type of wood doesn’t mean you must use that type of wood elsewhere in the room. Mix old and new woods in different shades and textures, says Gorder: “If you just keep matching, it looks like a bad pantsuit.”

RECLAIMED WOOD

People are embracing reclaimed wood and giving it new life, Yip says.

“We realize it’s not an infinite resource we can just keep exploiting,” he says. “It’s a natural extension of the green movement, colliding with the fact that we’re repurposing a lot of things these days.”

And wood adds character to a room, the designers say. Old doors, shutters, crates and barns are being repurposed into furniture and floor or wall coverings. “It’s that soul you can’t buy off the showroom floor,” Gorder explains.

Salvaged wood is refreshingly low-maintenance because scratches only add to its charm.

“I have two young children under the age of six,” Olson says. “So weathered finishes, they really speak to me.”

Reclaimed flooring and furniture can be expensive, especially if you’re set on a particular item or type of wood. But, this being North America, fake wood with a weathered “reclaimed” finish can be had for a lower price than the real thing.

WOOD-GRAIN UPHOLSTERY AND WALLPAPER

If you are going with an impostor, these designers say go all the way. They love the cheerful fakery of wall coverings and upholstery with wood-grain patterns.

“You know a chair isn’t upholstered in wood, so that’s tongue-in-cheek,” Gorder says. “It’s playful.”

Materials like these let designers take “nature and tradition, and stylize it” in unexpected ways, Olson says. In designing a line of wallpaper, she combined the look of wood grain with a metallic finish. “It’s that reference to a natural motif, but with the metallic, that makes it new and fresh and current.”

TO FAKE OR NOT TO FAKE

Given a choice between real wood and a facsimile, these designers prefer the real thing. Nothing quite replaces a true wood floor.

But laminates and synthetics can help make a huge visual change on a relatively small budget, Gorder says. The technology has come far, and fakes are looking less fake these days. And because laminate flooring resists water fairly well, it is increasingly popular in kitchens, bathrooms and basements.

“If people put it down or have it installed professionally with either a cork or sponge underlay,” Olson says, “you don’t have that hollow, cheap feeling of walking on a laminate floor.”

Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

The CaGBC clearly states in its FAQ on Chain of Custody for Certified Wood products that failure to purchase from an FSC COC certified vendor may result in a failure to meet LEED requirements. In the FAQ, the CaGBC encourages Canadian manufacturers and distributors to obtain FSC CoC certification to ensure their competitiveness on LEED projects.

LEED is a third-party certification program and an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Certification is based on the total point score achieved, following an independent review and an audit of selected Credits.

The Materials and Resources Credit 7 recognizes the environmental and social value of building with responsibly sourced wood by including a credit that is specific to the use of FSC-certified products. Buildings may earn this credit, with a value of one point, if a minimum of 50% of wood-based materials and products (by cost) in the building are FSC-certified.

To learn more about FSC Chain of Custody certification, please go to www.fsc.org/types-of-certification

More information on LEED Canada is available at www.cagbc.org

Please find more news on FSC in Canada at www.fsccanada.org and all national news at www.fsc.org/national-news.html

Source: FSC Canada