For a twist on standard hardwood flooring, try a classic chevron or herringbone pattern—the parquet styles have been around for more than a century. Choosing between the two comes down to personal taste: Chevron planks meet in perfect points like a long string of arrows, while herringbone planks look slightly staggered. Often found in formal living rooms, dining rooms, and entrance halls, both of these elegant zigzag designs elevate a room from the ground up.

HERRINGBONE

The Herringbone pattern is often confused with chevron, but herringbone is created by placing rectangles in a staggered zigzag pattern, as shown below, it is commonly found in tile work and parquet floors.

For herringbone floors, the wood is not cut at an angle, but in rectangles that are laid in a broken zigzag pattern. If you look closely, you can see that the pieces of flooring here do not come to a sharp point, as in the chevron floor and seen previously.

CHEVRON

Chevron pattern wood flooring is a type of flooring installed in such a way as to create a “V”. It can be laid parallel to the walls or diagonally. Both methods are used for the installation of this style of flooring. The chevron method makes smaller spaces appear longer or wider.