Help settle out difference of opinion on parquet floor

[JenaWren]

Can you help settle a difference of opinion on this parquet floor?

We recently moved into a new house and then found we had a few unexpected carpet moth housemates.

We’ve just taken up the carpets and found this. The floor is in reasonably good nick - I suspect it might be original 1970s based the age of some of the carpet.

It’s an ugly dark colour but I think it could be repaired and restored to something lovely.

DH says it reminds him of his parents house and he can’t get past the old fashioned vibes.

Please help settle the argument - do we restore or do something else (carpet or new hardwood floor).

Friends of mine recently restored a floor like this. It looks fantastic. Very much back in vogue again.

If you keep this it will be a feature that people will want if you come to sell it.

It will be gorgeous. I'd kill for this!

We have the exact same thing. It is five finger parquet tiles. If you look carefully, there are tiles with 3 x 3 block of five finger sets. They have a bitumen backing.

They were relatively common in the 70s. Everything was better quality then. Could be teak, mahogany, oak or something else.

They will lighten up if you sand them and varnish, and look quite nice, but make sure you hire a proper sander, and sand diagonally across the grain rather than up and down.

Keep the sawdust, and use a filler with it to fill in the gaps, then sand again with a finer grit paper. Then varnish. I would recommend a satin finish and it will come up way better than you could imagine.

All that said, we are slowly replacing ours as funds allow.

Oh my - thank you all for your advice.

It looks like a pretty resounding vote for team keep it. I’m very happy about that.

I am going to use your wonderful arguments to persuade DH to give it a go.

I’m loving that pic of your floor Should. Is your very cute supervisor available for hire? S/he looks like they would do a very good job!

I’d love to see any more pics of beautiful parquet floors if anyone is happy to share.

Wow you’re really lucky! Sand it and oil it - Less is more. It will be paler than it is now. With rugs and furniture, you’ll hardly notice it but it will save you ££ over the years on replacing carpets - especially if you have cats who like to claw! I have recently moved from a house where the whole ground floor was parquet and I really miss it. If you like the mid-century look go all out for that, otherwise most styles will fit in.

Restore. It's gorgeous and you are so lucky to find that!

I love it, would refinish it and then leave it alone.

Sand a little back and see what colour is underneath the finish. Ours was this dark, but it was oak flooring and when we started sanding it went much lighter - this pic was taken during the first run-over of the sander so you can see the difference. It got lighter with each pass and it's now beautiful.

Even if something is out of fashion wait long enough and it will come back in !

That's why I've still got my velvet flares.

looks fine, ready to live on maybe a quick sand and wax it’s probably hard wood and v good quality

Well sounds like you’re convinced but was going to add to the chorus! We found this in our smaller reception, very old house, not sure when it dates from but ‘modern’ vs the house age but still probably at least 50-60 years old. Had it sanded and restored so now very pale and oiled with a lovely rug in the centre. Definitely a selling point.

Oh I love it! I started a thread the other day asking if anyone knew of a decent LVT that looks like this 😄 (anyone?!) so I def vote keep it! It is SO mid century and will go with lots of different styles of furniture

It’s gorgeous.

Love it. I’d have that in the right era of house (I’m in a thatched cottage though) in a heartbeat.

I found the same flooring in my house. I love parquet but not particularly this pattern and it didn't fit the overall style I was going for. Absolutely couldn't get rid of it though so I've carpeted over it so it can be a lovely surprise for future owners (or me, if I change my mind and want to uncover it)!

I’m 65 and no way would I be able to live with that, it’s not even the nice herringbone one

Honestly I would love to have that flooring.

People buy it online and spend hours stripping the glue off so they can lay it in their homes. It actually very on trend too despite what some people on here are saying.

Gorgeous!

There is a limit to how long you can wait though.

Beautiful. What an asset.

I remember my dad laying a floor like this in the mid 70s. It was square tiles that you laid on top of another floor so not really solid. I don’t particularly like it personally in spite of loving my dad and our house when we were growing up!

I think its gorgeous, restore it

I'm afraid I don't like it, but I'm not really a fan of anything mid-century. In the right house - which I'm guessing yours is @JenaWren I can see why you'd want to restore/keep it.

We found similar in the kitchen of the Georgian thatched house we bought in 2011. It was completely incongruous with the character of the building, so we carefully removed it but had to give it away as we struggled to sell the stuff.

Our next (arts and crafts) house had stunning oak herringbone parquet throughout most of the ground floor. That was much nicer imho.

We knew some philistines people who removed herringbone parquet from a huge ten bedroom house they were destroying renovating and chucked it all on a bonfire along with a fantastic carved staircase...idiots!