David Gunton's Hardwood Floors

For over 40 years David Gunton has been enjoying life, creating and restoring fine hardwood floors. He becomes more boring in his enthusiasm for them with each passing year. A perfectionist, who, in his son Rob who works with him, spawned an even greater perfectionist and master craftsman joiner /carpenter / hardwood flooring expert. David and Rob seek opportunities to collaborate with discerning clients to make beautiful floors for them and posterity. Scorning 'off the shelf' materials, their works are handmade, designed and made from scratch. ( Funny phrase? Made from wood in reality. ) We scour the UK, Europe and the World, for the right timber for every floor; the right quality, and cut; the longest (up to 15 metres), widest, straightest, oak logs for extraordinary handworked board floors; ultra fine logs, free of knots and of consistent colour; 'Country grade' rippling with character and Burr logs of inestimable beauty. For a seaview house in Oz we supplied 8 by 1.1 metre oak boards. The Hong Kong Gagosian Gallery sports very fine, quarter sawn, oak parquet boards of planned lengths. After the Great Fire at Windsor Castle, we recreated the complex decorative marquetry floor in the Crimson Drawing Room and restored the original decorative floors in the Green Drawing Room and the Grand Reception Room. We carried out restorative isolated repairs to marquetry floors in the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. We enjoy as much the making of simpler beauties such as an 8 sq.m. Cherry basketweave floor in the hallway of a 1930's semi detached house near Bristol. The client told us the floor gave him joy every day when he returned from work and opened his front door. Many clients tell us that they have been reluctant to put rugs and furniture on the floor and so cover its beauty. We have restored many old, even ancient, floors, from Edwardian parquets to 15th. C board floors which are now good for a few more centuries of use. From those experiences we confidently predict that our new handworked oak board floors, if reasonably cared for, will still be in use 1000 years or more from now. Equally, we are surel that our meticulously created new parquets may well still be in use 500 years hence. So, we are not making disposable floors, but things of art and beauty to last into the future. We are often invited to put time capsules under the floors we make for the enjoyment of future generations.