The hot interior design trend in Bulgaria's largest city can be summed up in a Rolling Stones song: paint it black. And with chic dark interiors, choosing the right flooring is important—especially when the jewel of the room is a strikingly wound staircase. "The interior design studio wanted a dark wood with a warm radiance," explains Aster Hadzhiev, general manager of Sofia, Bulgaria-based Parquet Style, who installed the flooring in this 2,400-square-foot penthouse with a three-person crew. After some back-and-forth with the designer, Hadzhiev says they found their answer with American walnut and its "unique color." They glued 5-inch-wide walnut over concrete, but the tricky part was creating templates to fit the unique metal staircase. The stair parts required "extremely precise construction," says Hadzhiev, and were cut from standard planks and beveled with a router. Although it has only 14 steps, the staircase took 430 square feet of material, including waste, to complete. The cuts on the prefinished wood were given two coats of oil finish to wrap up the month-long project. There's no Rolling Stones song to describe the clients' reaction to the completed stairs, because they got, to put it mildly, satisfaction.
Abrasives: Bona | Adhesive: MAPEI | Finish: Osmo | Router, Table saw: Festool | Wood flooring: Kährs
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