Inlay marquetry. Harwood parquet floors.

Hardwood floor or parquet flooring marquetry is the craft of covering a structural carcass with pieces of veneer forming decorative patterns, designs or pictures on the floor. The veneers used are primarily woods, but may include bone, ivory, turtle-shell (conventionally called 'tortoiseshell'), mother-of-pearl, pewter, brass or fine metals making your parquet floor look that much better. Marquetry using colored straw was a specialty of some European spa resorts from the end of the 18th century. Many exotic woods as well as common European varieties can be employed, from the near-white of boxwood to the near-black of ebony, with veneers that retain stains well, like sycamore, dyed to provide colors not offered in nature.