For Tanja, the lady behind the blog at Cocojana.de, there’s one colour that’s simply better than the rest. From her furniture to carpets and other textiles, not to mention the fireplace, everything is a vision in fresh white – even the dog is perfectly coordinated! But finding the perfect flooring wasn’t a straightforward task, as Tanja tells us in her story.
Hi there! I’m Tanja – a blogger at Cocojana.de – and this is Cooper, my little Westie. I’m so excited to share a few pictures of my newly renovated home with you.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m a huge fan of white. I like to keep things minimalistic and light and love to combine contemporary furniture with individual older – almost antique – accessories. One of my favourite pieces, in fact, is the antique vase you can see in the picture above.
My love for the colour white is clear from virtually everything in my home, which is why it didn’t take me long to make a decision when choosing a fireplace – it had to be white. This is how I ended up with a white fireplace in the living room and also one in the bedroom, which is actually quite unusual in Germany.
It had been my dream since forever to have a white parquet floor, which sounds straightforward enough but it was far from it! Want to know why? Well let me tell you…
The tiles, laminate flooring and even the partition walls were easy enough to remove with a little work, and we were even able to prepare the floor relatively quickly to ensure the surface was completely smooth. But trying to find the perfect white flooring was a saga in itself.
I lost count of the funny looks people gave me when I said, “I’m looking for white parquet flooring. Yes, completely white!”
Out of sheer desperation I started to think about painting untreated oak flooring white, but a flooring specialist convinced me that this wasn’t the way to go. Apparently, the natural tannins and vapours from the untreated wood can lead to yellow discolouration, so I quickly went off this idea.
Then suddenly I saw it! I was in a specialist store with a huge selection and it was right in front of me, clear as day – The MEISTER parquet flooring in polar white oak! (Link to product PD 400 8081) This was the one!!! This was exactly how I had imagined the floor to look.
The next step was to think about another crucial aspect: the underfloor heating. I have electric underfloor heating throughout the house, so I was relying on good advice in regard to both this and the product characteristics of this long-awaited parquet flooring. This is because not every flooring type, let alone every real-wood floor, is compatible with an underfloor heating system. As luck would have it, MEISTER parquet flooring is one of those compatible options, so we decided to run the beautiful white parquet flooring throughout every room in the house (with the exception of the bathroom).
After a year’s use, including a few months of having the heating on, I can definitely say that it works brilliantly! I would buy it again any day. I love the warm properties of parquet and, as you can see, Cooper finds it pretty comfortable, too.
Here’s a peek towards the bedroom. We knocked down all of the lightweight partition walls upstairs, too, to create a more spacious look. My dressing room is open and features a couple of wardrobes in addition to these minimalistic hanging rails. In the background of this picture you can see my absolute favourite cupboard, which was made out of an old barn door.
Here’s another angle of the bedroom… and finally the heart of the house: the kitchen.
I’m delighted that taking down the walls has allowed us to create a kitchen like this with a huge island, and I can honestly say that all of the work was worth it to get the home I’ve always dreamed of.
