To update and modernize golden oak floors, you can either make use of a coordinating or contrasting color palette, depending on your personal and style preference.
Different types of hardwood floors have become an increasingly popular design feature within homes.
Oak flooring, in particular, is affordable, beautiful and easy to take care of, which is what makes it such a popular choice among homeowners and designers.
However, some types of oak flooring, like golden oak floors, have been popular for a long time and this type of flooring, though beautiful, can make your whole design feel outdated and stale.
Fortunately, there are several clever ways to work around these floors and still create a modern and styling interior design.
One of the most effective ways to update any room is by adding a new, fresh color palette into your room design.
When you have golden oak floors, you will have to be careful as to which colors you choose for your color palette, as you do not want the room to feel dated, but there are many colors that will help you to achieve a stylish design.
The benefits of oak flooring
When it comes to the different types of wooden floors, oak is among the most popular.
Oak grows all over the United States, and as a result, choosing oak for your wooden floors and furniture is usually the best way to ensure that you will be able to choose from an abundance of wood and a price that suits your budget.
The price is not the only thing that makes oak flooring such a popular choice, oak floors are durable and can be refinished over and over for years to come.
Oak floors, whether they are solid wood or engineered wood, are easy to clean and maintain, which makes them the perfect choice for any household that wants a classic look, but with minimal maintenance.
Oak floors hold up well to daily wear and tear and scuff marks, and dents can be buffed out if an accident happens.
As far as daily cleaning goes, a dust mop and wood-safe cleaner is all you will need to keep your oak floors looking great over time.
As a result of these benefits, oak flooring has been a popular installation in homes from the early 80s, with different oak colors like honey oak, white oak, red oak and golden oak still featuring in homes to this day.
Are golden oak floors coming back into style?
Since oak flooring and cabinets have been such a staple design element for so many years, many homeowners and designers feel like oak cabinets can make a space feel and look outdated, even if your floors or cabinets are brand new.
Oak flooring and especially golden oak with its naturally yellow and orange tones will always be a popular type of wood for interior designs, even if it is not trendy right now.
Although modern design trends tend to lean into more natural elements such as wood, the yellow undertones of golden oak floors can still make the room feel outdated.
If you love the look of golden oak, or you simply do not want to change your existing floors, but you also do not want your house to feel outdated, there are several ways to update the look of your house around these golden oak floors.
The most common way to make a room with golden oak flooring feel modern and fresh is to modernize some of the other elements in the room.
Replacing old hardware and with new, sleek modern styles, will instantly make the room feel contemporary and trendy.
The other way to make oak flooring, especially golden oak flooring feel modern, is to use oak in innovative ways.
Whitewashing or refinishing golden oak floors can help to modernize those yellow undertones in your wood, and help your floors to harmonize with a more modern, cool color palette.
If you are installing new golden oak floors, you could lay the wooden planks in interesting patterns, like herringbone and brick-style.
These contemporary styles will make the golden oak floors seem like a new design focal point, instead of a dated feature.
The other effective way to update golden oak flooring is by using color strategically within the room, to help you to coordinate or contrast with your golden oak floors, depending on what design style you are going for.
Coordinating and contrasting color schemes
Before you start developing color palettes for any designs, it is important to take the elements that are already in the room into account.
Since you will have to work around golden oak floors in your design, you will need to take the undertones of your flooring into account when you are making decisions about the other colors that you want to add to the room.
Golden oak floors tend to have varying undertones of yellow and sometimes even orange colors. This gives the wood an overall golden, honey-like appearance.
The color scheme that you choose for any particular room, can either coordinate or contrast with your floors depending on which style you prefer.
Colors with yellow, orange and generally warmer undertones will coordinate with your floors. This means that your floors and the other colors in your room, will all have the same undertones and all harmonize together.
This will lead to a warmer and more inviting overall color scheme. However, you could also go with the opposite color scheme, where you would choose colors that have opposing undertones, to purposefully create more contrast within your design.
Complementary colors are colors that are directly opposite from each other on the color wheel.
These colors tend to be really bright and vibrant when they are placed next to each other. This means that you would choose colors that have cool undertones, to contrast with the warmer undertones in your wood.
Coordinating colors that go with golden oak floors
Warm neutral colors tend to be the best choice if you want to create a coordinating color scheme for golden oak floors.
These colors will have the same slightly warm undertones as your wooden floors, and this will create a very harmonious color scheme throughout the room.
These colors tend to tone down the very yellow and orange tones in golden oak floors, as the similar undertones will allow the different colors in the room to sort of blend together.
There are many different ways to add colors such as creams, beiges, tans and greiges to any room with golden oak floors, but paint is usually the best way to add a lot of color all at once.
Some of the paint colors that fall into this warm neutral family include:
| Shade | Brand | Color swatch |
| Kilim Beige | Sherwin Williams |  |
| Gentle Cream | Benjamin Moore |  |
| Canvas Tan | Benjamin Moore |  |
One of the other ways to add elements of this warm neutral color palette into your home includes soft furnishing, furniture and art.
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Contrasting colors that go with golden oak floors
If the overall warm color palette does not suit your personal style or design style – a high-contrast, complementary color scheme might be a better option.
Here, colors with cooler undertones, like greens, blues and purples will accentuate the yellow in your golden oak floors and create a room with a lot of contrast.
Generally, the more contrast that a room has, the more visually interesting the design will be to look at overall. This option also allows you to be a bit more daring with your color choices.
Where the coordinating colors schemes focus on soft neutral colors, a contrasting color scheme will lean more towards blue, green and gray colors.
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However, if you do choose a gray color, remember that even though golden oak floors are still very warm, a warm-toned gray will work best if you want to avoid too much contrast, which could lead to a color scheme that clashes.
Some paint colors that fall into this warm gray category includes:
| Shade | Brand | Color swatch |
| Colonnade Gray | Sherwin Williams |  |
| Mindful Gray | Sherwin Williams |  |
Final thoughts
Oak flooring is a good choice for any household, because it is a sturdy and low-maintenance option. However, some particular oak colors, like golden oak, can sometimes make a room feel very old, even if the flooring and design is all new.
To avoid this old-fashioned look, there are several interior design tricks that will work with your golden oak flooring to update the entire room’s design. The room’s color palette is one of the ways to quickly update the look and feel of any room.
There are several coordinating and contrasting colors that can be added to a room with golden oak floors, to give the room an updated and modern look.
