When Alex Hamilton of Grain Design Flooring met with a homeowner about a new construction project in Newport, Kentucky, the discussion quickly centered on balance. The client was open to custom work, but she was clear about the limitations. The home wasmodern in both layout and feel, and while she appreciated classic parquet patterns, she felt
those designs leaned too heavily toward the past. Instead what she wanted was something that could bridge traditional craftsmanship with a more contemporary sensibility.
The custom flooring would span more than 600 square feet across several areas of the home, including a foyer, the great room on the main level, and even the floor inside the elevator. Each space needed to feel connected, but the design also had to respect the clean lines and modern architecture of the house.
“She had pulled up several classic parquet patterns,” says Hamilton. “She liked them,
but she felt they were too dated for a modern house. The goal became figuring out how
to bridge that gap between traditional and modern, which is not an easy thing to do.”
Hamilton began sketching shapes that could give him more flexibility than traditional parquet forms. He landed on a trapezoid as the base shape, seeing it as more versatile than a square or a 45-degree triangle.
“A trapezoid lets you do more,” he says. “You can work with different orientations and still keep things structured. There are a lot of ways to lean into the 30- or 60-degree split, and I started experimenting to see how far I could push it without losing clarity.”
As the design evolved, Hamilton flipped the trapezoids so the long sides faced inward instead of outward. That shift led to a breakthrough. By rotating the perimeter one quarter turn, the pattern began to take on a sharper, sawblade-like effect. When three pieces met, a perfect triangle formed, and that triangle repeated throughout the layout.
“When I realized that three pieces together created a new shape, that’s when I knew I was
close,” explains Hamilton. “You start seeing that triangle show up over and over again. It kind of tricks your eye. The more you look at it, the more simple it becomes.”
To test the idea, Hamilton built a 4’ by 4’ mockup panel using 4”-wide character grade oak, stained a warm medium brown, finished to match the existing prefinished floor. He had grown attached to the design, but was unsure how the homeowner would respond. In the end, she approved it.
Not long after, the project shifted again. The homeowner decided to change the flooring
product used elsewhere in the house, altering the dimensions Hamilton had designed around.
“I had my sled and my process dialed in, and then she told me she was switching to a different product,” says Hamilton. “We were going from a 4” plank to a 91/2” plank. Realizing the 91/2” was too large, I had to find a number that was divisible. I ended up going with 43/4” to keep everything in scale. I didn’t understand the math at first, and I had to figure it out.”
That shift introduced another challenge alongside an already intensive milling process. In total, Hamilton milled 3,740 individual pieces. Each piece was routed on all four sides, given a microbevel, lightly sanded to maintain a warm, rustic appearance that would complement the prefinished European oak used elsewhere in the home, and then
oiled by hand.
“The milling took much longer than I thought it would,” Hamilton said. “There was no shortcut. I spent about 50 hours cutting, another 50 hours routing, around 25 hours sanding, and roughly 16 hours oiling. Every single piece was handled individually. Each one truly was handcrafted. The entire project was prefinished with Odie’s Oil.”
Installation was done onsite rather than as prefabricated panels, using a full glue application over an Advantech subfloor. Layout introduced another key decision. The fireplace in the great room was off-center, forcing Hamilton to choose whether to align the pattern with the room or the fireplace.
“We ended up splitting the difference and adding one more row,” he says. “That helped everything feel balanced once it was down.”
Hamilton compared the installation process to tightening lug nuts on a car, working around the layout evenly to prevent the pattern from pulling in one direction. “It was very simple, but it could have gone wrong quickly,” he recalls. “Even being off by 1/16” would have caused a big problem.”
For Hamilton, presenting new ideas is always worth the risk. “I always tell myself that offering something new is an option,” he says. “They might say no, or they might say yes. When they say yes, and you feel that pressure knowing you have to perform, that’s something I actually love. That feeling of having to execute an idea you believe in is what keeps me going.”
