A little engineering and lots of imagination have resulted in wooden panels,made from high density wooden fibre boards, with three layers of protectivefilm on top to make them stronger and more durable than traditional woodenfloors.

These wooden panels come with all the right qualities of resistance toscratches, termites, scuffs, impact, stains, household disinfectants, slipsand fading. What's more, they never need re-varnishing, re-sanding orwaxing. Mr Anand Dattani, managing director of Sharper Image, importers ofwooden flooring from three Dutch firms, says: "The world over, people arepreferring wooden flooring to other traditional forms of flooring likemarble or stone. The market for wooden flooring is growing at 15 per centper annum in the world market."

In India, wooden flooring is yet to capture the imagination of the masses.Mr Dattani claims that the market here is growing at 5 per cent per annumand his company has already had a turnover of Rs 15 crore since January thisyear. Sharper Image, he claims, imports only the best brands and has a longlist of corporate clients such as Airtel, Reebok, Jaypee Hotels, MauryaSheraton, Ansals and Doordarshan. "We even have some very upmarketresidential properties where the flooring is wooded," he says.

Wooden laminate flooring is more expensive than some local marble flooring,but much cheaper than Italian marble. Laminate panels costs Rs 125-254 persq ft, veneer panels Rs 227-245 and traditional wooden flooring (parquet) Rs70-500 per sq ft. Marble flooring ranges between Rs 60 and Rs 3,000 per sqft, depending on the quality of marble used. "But wooden laminate flooringcan be laid overnight on existing flooring and we even given a warranty forup to 25 years, depending on the quality chosen," says Mr Dattani.

Architect Rasik Behl, who has used wooden floors for many of the upmarkethomes he has designed, says he has no complaints with the products.

"However, it has to be an air-conditioned environment," he feels, though thecompany claims that the product has been tropicalised to withstand therigours of Indian weather conditions.Whatever the argument, wooden floors have their own charm and appeal andwith the engineered panels bringng the prices to a more affordable level,they have become an attractive alternative.