Parquet flooring can come in many different pattern styles. The most common we tend to see are wood strip, basket weave, mosaic and our own personal favourite Herringbone parquet.

We are fortunate to receive a lot of enquires to restore parquet wood flooring.

The email normally starts with “we just purchased a house, lifted the old carpet and we’re shocked to find a beautiful parquet wood floor that could do with a new lease of life!" It’s music to our ears at Hemmings Floor Restoration.

Fitting a new parquet floor can be extremely expensive, so finding a parquet floor hidden under a carpet is a great find. It will cost a fraction of the price of a new install to restore.

The initial thing we look for with a herringbone parquet restoration are loose blocks. Many of these floors were fitted using bitumen and over time the bitumen can become brittle and in turn the individual blocks can become loose. These loose blocks require lifting and relaying - not always as easy as it sounds - removing the tongue and groove to remove a single block can cause many others to become loose, so removing 1 block could easily turn into 20 very quickly.

Once the blocks are removed the bitumen needs removing from both the blocks and the sub floor. The blocks are then re-layed using a wood floor adhesive which reacts with any bitumen we haven’t managed to remove and reactivates it allowing it to stick extremely well.

Now the herringbone parquet blocks are solid and not moving we can begin sanding the floor. We start with removing the old varnish or wax off all of the floor and levelling any raised areas. Typically working through the grits of 40, 60, 80 then 100.

You will tend to notice gaps between each block depending on how well the floor had been fitted. If the gaps are an issue, at this stage we collect the 100 grit sanding dust in our vacuum separator while sanding. We then mix this with a wood floor filler and trowel this over the full floor and allowed to dry. Once dry checked to see if the filler has sunk into the larger gaps, if so we re-apply, leave to dry then sand off all of the excess filler with the 100 grit again.

Finally we go over the full floor with a 120 grit 17” mesh to blend the scratch patterns to provide a fine smooth finish.

The floor is looking great and now its time to apply a finish to the floor.

In most instances our product of choice is Pallmann Magic Oil 2k, mentioned in our other blog - we have posted the link at the end of this blog.

This penetrates into the wood and protects from within, its repairable and replenish-able which makes it a great option.

The Magic Oil enhances the natural colours of the wood leaving the wood looking rich and revitalised.

That’s it, floor complete and now it’s time to enjoy the forever classy Herringbone parquet floor.

We always provide a maintenance cleaner and with Magic Oil 2k projects and provide Magic Oil care.