Strong Roots is a full retail flooring store with a showroom in Kelowna. We also run a service department that refinishes floors and builds custom work. That second half is where things get interesting. These are nine custom flooring projects in Kelowna and the Okanagan. Each one started the same way: somebody asked whether we could do something unusual. For example: a pattern, a court, a labyrinth, a floor made of end grain blocks. Each one ended with a floor nobody else has.
Here, then, are nine of the custom flooring projects Kelowna and Okanagan clients have brought us over the years. These are the ones we still talk about around the shop.
1. Forty Feet of Custom Basketweave Panels
Patterned floors are having a moment, and most of that moment is herringbone and chevron. Basketweave is the quieter cousin, and it is deceptively difficult. At first the pattern reads as simple squares. Then you are the one keeping every block square across forty feet of hallway. And of course there is no forgiving wall to hide a drift.
First we designed and built the panels in white oak, measured for a perfect fit end to end. Then we set them inside a hardwood border and finished the whole run on site. It is, in fact, the sort of hallway people slow down in without quite knowing why.
2. Home Court
Home court advantage, taken literally. A family of basketball players wanted a court of their own as part of their renovation. So we built it properly. A sleeper system underneath for spring and stability, hardwood over top. The key and three-point line laid out the way they should be. It is a real training facility, not a novelty.
3. Bali Inspired Custom Hardwood Floors
We searched a lot of suppliers to find the right prefinished hardwood for the Bali-inspired look these clients were after. It had to be oxidized. It had to be rustic. It had to be pillowed. We found all three in one floor.
Then the homeowners took the inspiration a step further and brought a tree into the house. A full sculptural trunk, viewable through a glass panel set into the main floor. You look down on it from above. Amazing is the only word for it.
4. The Black Floor
Of course, choosing a stain colour is the part most people agonize over. These clients did not: they had a vision and the style to carry it off. It is the only fully black floor we have ever done, and against all that white panelling it works beautifully.
5. A Gymnasium, Rebuilt From the Concrete Up
The gym floor at Rutland Secondary had taken on water and was, by then, well past saving. Pulling it up revealed a substrate that was nowhere near level. That is the point where a flooring job quietly turns into a construction project.
We levelled the concrete, built a sleeper system, and laid a new subfloor and new maple over top. Then we finished it for the punishment a school gym takes. Then came the part nobody pictures when they think about flooring. Relocating the basketball hoops, pulling the bleachers out and putting them back, laying out the school logo at centre court. In short, stable, safe, and squeak-free was the brief. That is what they got.
6. Solid Cumaru and Rounded Tile
We have done plenty of commercial work, but few custom flooring projects in Kelowna have come with a brief like the one for a beloved downtown mall — the old Town Centre Mall — when the owners set out to update the main areas. There is no boring one-by-one tile here. They wanted solid Cumaru, oiled, running through the concourse, and a food court floor laid in custom-cut rounded tile. It was topped off with a large faux tree, a ledgestone fireplace for ambiance, and wood panelling on the walls. Now home to some of the best local shops in town, the building has taken on a whole new icon status in Kelowna.
7. Surprise, It’s Hickory
Our favourite jobs are the ones where the homeowner has no idea what they already have. We have seen a black hand-scraped floor turn out to be walnut underneath. In this case a beautiful lakefront home had a lacklustre brown floor. The owners wanted a Cape Cod look, and the plan was to tear the whole thing out. Before they did, we took a section back to bare wood so they could see what was under there. Hickory, and a very good one. They refinished what they had and added hickory through the rest of the house, stairs included. The result was jaw dropping.
8. The Stone Labyrinth
This house came with a stone labyrinth set into the entry, and the owners loved it. Then came an insurance claim and new hardwood throughout. With it, the real prospect of losing the one feature that made the entry theirs. So we sourced pebble tile and laid the stones one at a time. The labyrinth went back into the new floor, slightly larger than the original.
9. An End Grain Floor in a Restaurant Lounge
End grain is a different animal. Rather than planks laid face up, you are looking at the ends of the blocks, growth rings facing the room. That is why it wears the way it does, and why it drinks finish the way it does.
We were brought in to finish one in the lounge of a restaurant. There, a floor has to read as a feature and survive as a commercial surface at the same time. It takes more coats than a plank floor and more patience between them. What you get at the end is a pattern no plank can give you.
Custom Flooring Projects in Kelowna: Common Questions
Do you design and build custom floor patterns?
Yes. Herringbone, chevron, basketweave, and custom panels are all work we take on. We either build them in our own shop or source and lay them on site. Then we sand and finish it as one floor, so the pattern reads cleanly from end to end.
Do you take on commercial custom flooring projects?
Yes. School gymnasiums, malls, restaurants, retail spaces, and sports courts are all part of what we do, alongside residential refinishing and installation across Kelowna and the Okanagan.
What is an end grain floor?
An end grain floor is made of wood blocks set with the growth rings facing up. Planks, by contrast, are laid on their face. It is exceptionally hard wearing, which is why it turns up in workshops and commercial spaces. It also absorbs far more finish than a plank floor does.
How do I get a quote for a custom flooring project in Kelowna?
Every quote starts with a free in-person assessment. For custom work we will also prepare sample boards in our wood shop. You can see your species and stain on real wood before anything is committed to.
Got a Custom Flooring Project in Mind?
Custom flooring projects in Kelowna rarely fit neatly into a standard quote. An inlay, a pattern, a piece of trim nobody stocks, a commercial space with a problem underneath it. Come and describe the idea to us. The odd jobs are the ones we enjoy most. After twenty years there is not much we have not been asked.
Book a free, no-obligation assessment and bring the idea with you, or browse more finished work in our gallery.
Strong Roots Flooring
2545 Enterprise Way, Units 109–110, Kelowna, BC
250-765-3123
[email protected]
Family-owned and working in the Okanagan since 2006 — serving Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, and occasionally clients throughout British Columbia.