10 Bold Colored Floors That Wow

In this Manhattan apartment's kitchen, designers William Diamond and Anthony Baratta added a playful citrus pattern to bright blue floors. "Our clients — a couple in their forties with two little girls — wanted something zippy and up-to-date, but that still cast an admiring eye on the past," says Diamond. The lacquered chair is from Room, the Saarinen table from Knoll. Microwave and wall oven by Viking.

"The floor is the room's biggest surface area, so I thought, why not a pond?" says Christina Murphy, the designer behind this Oyster Bay, New York beach house. Stylized lily pads painted by Christopher Rollinson.

The circular pattern of these black and white marble floor tiles by Ann Sacks give a graphic punch to this Washington town house by Hillary Thomas and Jeff Lincoln. "The house makes you want to put on some Chet Baker and get all Mad Men with a pack of cigarettes and a shaker full of gin martinis," says Thomas.

In her Texas guesthouse, designer Ginger Barber stained the floor chocolate brown and white. "We did that for fun," she says. "We used porch stain to get that on-and-off paint look – imperfect. The shading's a little irregular so the age and patina come through."

In the foyer of her Kansas City apartment, designer Kelee Katillac stained the entry floor's diamond pattern herself. A Park Avenue bergère from Hickory Chair is upholstered in a Valtekz patent leather.

Alla Akimova created drama in a luminous, all-white New York City bathroom by adding a chevron marble floor. It's composed of Dark Emperador and Thassos marble and was custom cut by Manhattan Renovations.

"Blue was a natural for a Nantucket boathouse, and it brightened all that old wood. Then we splattered it with red, white, and blue, so you don't notice all the sand you track in. You just tap a wet paintbrush against a strip of wood, but it's more difficult to control than you think. It could end up looking like a Jackson Pollock — but that would be cool, too," says designer Gary McBournie.