Parquet flooring

[BauerTime]

So, my dream is to have proper parquet flooring. We are moving house and short of a miracle which sees us pulling up the carpet and finding some already there, I'm looking at getting some put in depending on cost.

Has anyone already done this and have any advice? Did you get new or reclaimed parquet? Is there a laminate option (in case it's wildly out of my price range)? Anything else I should know?

[Greencheese]

I briefly looked into this, until I remembered we were skint seriously, I saw some amazing reclaimed stuff on eBay it was beautiful. I asked around about fitting and it was easily triple the cost of the floor. So maybe ask about locally for fitting costs too.

[BauerTime]

Yeah I guess it's the fitting that would sting as I imagine it's quite specialist.

I love the thought of having reclaimed flooring that's original rather than new stuff too.

[GuinevereOfTheRoyalCourt]

We have engineered oak parquet. It wasn't much more expensive per square metre than normal planks - but as already stated, the fitting was VERY expensive. It's particularly important to have a very level floor otherwise it will look terrible, and our floor was unfortunately very uneven and required sack after sack of levelling compound!

Worth every penny, mind. I absolutely love it.

[BauerTime]

Guinevere would you mind helping me try to get an idea of price please. I've only ever had laminate before but as we are moving to our 'forever' home I want to spend a bit lot more but we are far from rolling in it. How much would you say it cost to get installed? And does it take ages?

[Apatite1]

My engineered wood flooring at £75 per sqm would cost £180 per sqm to lay parquet. I am not a big fan of parquet (apart from the very high end stuff) but that difference in price put a complete kibosh on the whole idea.

[BauerTime]

Wow that's a huge cost and one that I wouldn't/couldn't pay. Probs stick to laminate then.

[cece]

Or only buy a house with parquet already in it like I did

[GuinevereOfTheRoyalCourt]

I wish I could remember the exact figures! I'm sure it came to more than 3K for an area about 14' square. I think it was about 1/3 for the wood and 2/3 fitting. We did have a particularly uneven floor which needed sorting out anyway, and we didn't shop around for the 'best price' as we felt really confident that our local flooring company was going to do the best job. They also had to get it level with some existing tiled flooring - which they did to perfection.

That said, when we did the floor in another room a year later, we went straight for planks didn't even consider parquet!

[thecheekofthem]

how do you maintain it?

[RandomMess]

Hmm we have some original parquet flooring in our house with a few bits missing due to walls being removed - tempted to chisel it off piece by piece and sell it now

[GuinevereOfTheRoyalCourt]

Ours is oiled. It needs mopping using a not-too-wet mop with a soap floor cleaner about once a fortnight. Then we oil it once a year. (We probably could do with oiling it more often as it's in a high traffic room - but we never get round to it!)

[deedeelondon]

I bought reclaimed parquet for my sitting room, dining room and hallway. The company I bought from recommended a local fitter who did a brilliant job. The total cost for the parquet, the fitting, sanding and finishing was £2,800 for an area of about 30 metres square, which I thought was very reasonable and actually much cheaper than many of the other options I considered, such as real wood plank flooring and engineered. The fitting took a week, and I warn you is very messy and disruptive, and left a coating of brown dust all over the house, but was well worth it. I'm delighted with the results - the floor looks better than I could ever have imagined and using reclaimed parquet ( mine was from an old school in Wales) is absolutely the right choice to make, not only from an environmental point of view, but also the for the quality of the wood, which is much better than anything you could buy new. I can PM you my fitters number if you live in London.

[BauerTime]

cece in my fantasy world we lift the 'what would have once been cream' carpet from the new house and below lies parquet floors!

But unfortunately our requirements for a new house extend further than fancy flooring. Sadly.

[BauerTime]

deedee yes please!

Where did you source your parquet?

[deedeelondon]

Bauer I have sent you a PM

[cece]

I hoover/sweep mine. Occasionally I will mop/wipe it down. It has some sort of polish on it. When we moved in in 2006 it was incredibly shiny and slippery. There was a bottle of polish and an electric polishing machine in the garage. I have never reapplied the polish or used the machine as I have kids and didn't want it slippery... IMO it is nicer now as it isn't so glossy and much safer to walk on.

[ohnoyou]

We've just bought some parquet flooring from ebay. We were lucky in that it's in quite good condition and will probably just need a light sanding when down rather than the heavy duty sander which we'd have had to of hired, and makes one hell of a mess!
We will lay it ourselves it's quite easy if you've a level floor and you chose a simple pattern. I like Herringbone which is fairly simple. I would think if you weren't comfortable doing the cuts, you could lay the majority yourself and then get a carpenter to do the edges? If you look at the company Parquet parquet, they have photos and a video showing how to lay it.
Once it is down we may stain it and will seal it rather than varnish it.
For cleaning I'll just use soapy water, mop and bucket with the occasional drop of vegetable oil in the water.
For 25 square metres the parquet cost just under £200 which was very cheap but we'd been looking for a while and just got lucky with the bidding also it's pitch pine so nothing fancy.
Good luck if you decide to go ahead, I love parquet and I doubly love reclaimed parquet, our last lot before this 'new parquet' was from a church and was over 100 years old!

[OliviaBenson]

We have karndean vinyl parquet- fools most people and is bomb proof!

[Kostana]

Hi, can I have london info on your flooring suppliers please

[Karen2210]

I was fortunate enough to find exactly that when lifted the carpets in my house when bought 16 years ago...original Parquet flooring! Am currently having makeover downstairs knocking 2 rooms into one & am going to be in possession of approximately 40sq mts of Parquet flooring to sell on. No idea how much to sell this for or ask for. Any suggestions from anyone greatly appreciated. 🤔

[wowfudge]

Look on eBay and you'll get an idea. You can probably sell it to a company that specialises in laying and restoring wood floors.

[AyeAyeFishyPie]

OliviaBenson - was that more expensive than normal Karndean? Would you be comfortable telling me how much you paid?

[Karen2210]

wowfudge,many thanks, I'm completely torn as wanted to re-lay the parquet once rooms finished. Some say get new floor as going quite contemporary, others, don't lose that Parquet. Aaagh. Dilemma 😢

[wowfudge]

I wouldn't sell it, but keeping it wasn't an option in your post! We pulled back the faded, marked green carpet in our living room when we were waiting for the removal men to get here to unpack the van and found an oak parquet floor. We had it repaired and restored for a fraction of the cost of even carpeting the room. Parquet and parquet effect flooring is currently fashionable and imo timeless. Keep it.

[Karen2210]

wowfudge, thanks for advice. The builder wants rid, I'm being persuaded, but half of me feels I should go with my gut & keep it. Will just need one room taking up then re-laying once rooms are all one so that the herringbone go the same way. Mammoth job but sure it'll be worth it. I haven't got a lot of time to make decision as work starts next week. 🙄🙄