Parquet Flooring Project

Our parquet flooring project started about 3 months ago.

Stephen often has bright ideas. It came to him one night that we should look at getting parquet flooring done in our living room. I have always been a fan of wood flooring so this sounded like a great idea. I didn’t exactly think about the execution as I didn’t know it was going to happen. “While we’re at it we can replace the fire and the harth and the skirting boards…” The list started to go on.

I didn’t really pay much attention. We’ve done large-ish scale projects before by accident, like stripping back the stairs to be the original wooden treads but that was “by accident”. We hadn’t actively planned to it so I wasn’t under the impression that this would actually come into fruition.

I can’t remember exactly when or how he broke the news to me but before I knew it, he’d bought 55 square metres of reclaimed parquet flooring off Ebay….

Typical behaviour. Yes it was a bargain. I couldn’t complain at that, but at that stage the garage was a complete mess and we didn’t really have the storage space but off he went with my friend’s husband in a van to collect the lot.

This was months ago. We’ve had it stacked in our garage smelling like bitchumen ever since.

The beginning

One day we just decided we’d go for it. Hyped up on the idea of having a lovely living room we hurried back home, donned some flexible clothing and started emptying the room. Luckily we have a large kitchen diner so we had plenty of space to put one of the sofas in on top of the dining table. I filled box after box with books, games and DVDS and proceed to disperse them throughout the house. Preferably in places that wouldn’t cause massive disruption.

This was about three months ago. Slowly the room has become more of a shell of it’s former self.

First the carpet went
Then the skirting board (and a lot of plaster off the walls with it after finding that the previous occupants wanted to set the next people the challenge to take it it off by finding the screw-heads of screws that were completely covered)
The fire followed and now lives in the garage until it can be sold
All the plaster from the chimney breast fell off as it had blown through not being suitable for having heat near it

We lived amongst the dust for weeks that turned into months. Things kept getting in the way of getting things sorted.

Finally, we’d had enough.

It started

Stephen got a family friend to come a plaster the chimney breast and hole where the fire will be going. He had two guys come and price up for a new fire and the work that comes with it.

We’d finally made some process…

Then last week we decided, that was it, the floor would be started.

Our living room consists of two areas; one the existing living room and two an extension which was put on by the last people who lived there. Sadly they didn’t lay the floor in the extension the same height as the existing floor. We kind of suspected this was the case as there was always a faint line showing through the carpet. Saturday we both got up early, did the obligatory run to B and Q and bought some self leveling floor.

I spent most of Saturday armed with a drill and a mixing attachment measuring out this grey powder, mixing it with water while Stephen poured it on to the floor.

Dry in four hours, fully dry in 24 hours. Challenge accepted. It was actually happening. The floor laying was coming closer!! I wasn’t letting myself get too excited.

Sunday morning we go up early again. Went to B and Q and bought the adhesive. Got home and prepped the room for the operation to start.

I carried a large amount of parquet flooring in from the garage and stacked it in one of the corners. Apparently you’re supposed to let the wooden flooring acclimatize to the room temperature. Luckily it’s not too different in the garage to the living room.

We spent a long time on Sunday getting the measurements done to get the precise starting point ready. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube that can advise how to do it but for the herringbone effect that I really wanted, you need to find the centre of the room and mark 45 degree angles. Basically the floor look like some mathematical theory by the time we’d finished.

We were then finally ready… two pieces of parquet went down. And the more followed.

It’s not easy. That first line if blocks is a killer. They slide around, go of straight, basically are a pain in the arse. I thought Stephen was going to rage and throw it all out of the window. Luckily he composed himself and admitted that we could only do so much on the first bit. It was better to let it dry and have it for a sturdy structure for next time. This was very true. The next night was much easier. We did notice that we’d gone off course slightly but we have accepted that we’re not experts, there will be gaps, it won’t be 100% perfect. We’re ok with it. It looks good and will look good when it’s done.

Current progress

Here’s a selection of photos showing the current status of the living room.

We started laying the parquet floor on Sunday afternoon. It’s now Thursday, so we’ll be doing more tonight. The first two photos are from Sunday and then one each night after.