The art of laying hardwood floors and creating marquetry has been practiced since ancient times.

Hardwood floors have been used for thousands of years. There has been a recent revival in the use of hardwood floors for homes and business. Thanks to this renewed interest in wood floors, new materials have been created to meet the variety of needs. State of the art engineered laminated hardwood flooring is available in many exotic and domestic species from all over the world.

Marquetry is the art of creating pictures using a variety of wood veneers or other materials which had its inception as an art form in ancient Egypt. It was revived by ecclesiastic orders during the Renaissance and reached its highest levels of perfection in the 18th century primarily as an embellishment on furniture for royalty. The primary material used is natural wood veneers from over 200 species of trees from all around the world. Wood veneers is the usual material however inlays can be made out of ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise shells, bark, stone, metal, gems, etc. All the peculiarities, grain, knots, defects, etc. are used in the overall effect of the picture.

According to Alan and Gill Bridgewater:

"Marquetry and inlay were inspired by the ancient craft of intarsia - the making of decorative and pictorial mosaics by the inlaying of precious and exotic materials onto a groundwork of solid wood.

Three thousand or so years ago, the Egyptians decorated much of their woodwork with inlay. In fact, in the tomb of the Pharaoh King Tutankhamon, the throne, chest, coffers, and nearly of the furniture are literally covered with inlay. Precious stones, miniature glazed tiles, and little brickets of wood, gold and ivory wonderfully embellished items of special prestigious and ceremonial importance.

In the Orient--in Persia, India, China, and Japan--inlay workers created all sorts of decorative delights, from complex wood parquetry designs set into floors to wood mosaics on walls and furniture, to small inlay picture designs on boxes, caskets, tombs, reliquaries, and ceremonials regalia. All uniquely beautiful, and all fabulously expensive in terms of time, labor, and cost of materials.

Through the centuries, in ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome, Persia, 8th century Japan, and 16th century Italy and Germany, wealthy patrons employed inlay craftsmen to create beautiful works of art. The process was both expensive and painstaking because, traditionally, the craft involved many long steps: importing rare and exotic hardwoods; slowly carving, lowering, and trenching a groundwork; sawing and slicing the small amount of difficult-to-cut, expensive hardwood into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick tiles; fitting and setting the mosaic tiles into a bed of glue or mastic, one piece at a time; and then finally, scraping, rubbing down, waxing, and burnishing the inlays surface.

Near the end of the 16th century an anonymous German clockmaker invented the jigsaw blade. The blade made possible new mass-production methods. No longer was the craft slow and prohibitively expensive. From the 17th century right through to the end of the 19th century, tools improved, and techniques became increasingly efficient and more refined. By the end of the 19th century, thin inlay veneer, or marquetry as it had now come to be called, was an extremely popular and accessible form of furniture decoration. The early 20th century heralded a revival of interest in special high-quality, exotic wood inlays and marquetries, with designers, hobbyists and artists creating pieces considered works of art in their own right. Making these beautiful pictures is a long, tedious process. Each piece has to be cut out with the utmost attention to detail. For the finest works of art 10,000 man-hours is not unheard of. The pieces are normally cut a variety of ways. For thin wood veneers, a sharp hobbyist knife is often used. Various types of copping and jeweler saws are also employed, but most modern work is done with an electric scroll and band saws, routers, and lasers. While the equipment for marquetry has improved significantly, the human touch required of the art remains a consuming process. The marquetry artist must still hand-draw his original design, select the right species of woods for the perfect combination of color, grain, and texture, then carefully arranging the integrate pattern perfectly together."

Because of the infinite variety of veneers, grain, and configurations available, a unique, one-of-a-kind product is ensured every time. Marquetry has been around for thousands of years, and today is considered something of a dying art.