Restoring original solid wood parquet anyone done it?

[GolightlyMrsGolightly]

I’ve hired a sander and polished up wooden floorboards before and rather promised myself I’d never do it again. The dust, the noise...the preparation. But it wasn’t hard.

We’ve got original solid wood 1908 parquet flooring in big hall and living room.

It’s a state but the blocks are all sound apart for about a Dozen.

Been quoted £3.5k for sorting it out. Should I accept that or try it myself...?

It's hard to say whether this quote is reasonable without knowing the square meterage of your floors. It sounds really amazing though, maybe worth hiring a professional if you can afford it.

I would get two more quotes and go for the quote in the middle.

Parquet flooring is a lot more work, I had it done professionally some years ago and his first job was to remove any nails and staples, then he went round and tapped every block and any that were loose he lifted and re-layed with a black tar. Then he started the sanding, using different grades of sandpaper, I think he must have done it three or four times, and the edges had to be done with a smaller hand held machine. Then he sealed it with some very hard wearing, varnishy stuff. I think it took about two or three days in total for a room 12 x 12 feet.

He did say that almost half his work comes from re-sanding floors where people have tried to do it themselves and mucked it up, but then perhaps he would say that..!

It is difficult, there can be absolutely no high points as they will scrub off leaving an uneven finish, as pp says it needs to be done several times etc etc. Parquet is a huge amount of work compared to boards.

What is the area? I had two quotes last week for a sand and refinish for my hallway parquet which is 16 square metres with a couple of fiddly sections. Approx £750 to £800.

This should give an idea of costs...

londonecofloors.com/prices.html

I did this with a hired sander and it didn't do a good job. Ended up paying someone to re-do it a couple of years later. It's much harder than doing floorboards because any badly sanded/uneven bits are much more noticeable, and it's really hard to get a perfectly even finish when you do it yourself. Personally I'd never do parquet again myself, would rather wait till I could afford to get it professionally done, but I've done floorboards a few times and had good results.

That's all helpful, thank you. The living room is 6.2 m x 4.8 m and the hall is 4.6 m x 2.4 m.

I did wonder if parquet would be harder than just boards.

That sounds expensive to me tbh - I’ve just had new hardwood finger parquet laid, sanded, sealed, oiled and skirted in a large (4m x 6m) living room and hallway for £1,200. Fashionable south London postcode. I wouldn’t try to do it yourself but I’d look for cheaper quotes.

We had our 2 quite large reception rooms and hallway done professionally around 6 years ago. It was about £4k at the time ( ouch,) but it looks blimmin lovely and people always comment on it. I think you should go for it OP.

Sorry to gate-crash OP, but if any PPs can recommend a source for engineered wood parquet flooring, I'd be grateful!