Parquet flooring: DIY or leave it to professionals?

9 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

We bought just over 100m2 of old mahogany parquetry blocks that were taken up from an old school. The bottoms are covered in tar (and bits on top as well), but we read that the glues nowadays stick to the tar so we don't have to get it off. The blocks are now stacked around the house, about 60cm/2ft high, hoping they are acclimatising to their new surrounding. Should we attempt to lay the parquet ourselves (standard herringbone with straight borders) or should we leave it to professionals? How difficult is it to finish the parquet yourself after it has been put down? Can you do it with rented machinery? Any input would be very welcome :)

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OnePlan

9 years ago

told ya ! shes fab !!!!!!!!!

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OnePlan
9 years ago
Jessegee is the queen of flooring ! She has cleaned up and restored several rooms - I will see if I can find her to help !!
jackydahlhaus thanked OnePlan
jackydahlhaus
Original Author
9 years ago
That would be great!
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jessegee
9 years ago
Hello, couldn't resist, what a fabulous pile, lol!
Am reading pu your comment properly , back in a mo :)))
jackydahlhaus
Original Author
9 years ago
And it's only part of it!
jackydahlhaus
Original Author
9 years ago
DH is planning to take up the old, unlevelled floorboards and will put in level, 2cm plywood boards by the way. I just read online that we probably want to take off the skirting boards too (to be replaced afterwards). Do we have to? Some are beautiful, but old and I would hate to damage them. Also, do we need to put anything down between the boards and the glue? Some internet sites mention self-levelling compound, but I am not sure we need that as the plywood boards should be level.
jessegee
9 years ago
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, what I would do first is decide if your floor is the right height, it will add height, can your doors open, will it cause a change of height between rooms etc, and will you go up to existing skirting /cupboards etc.
Is the floor level? If it slopes away your pattern may go wonky.
Be prepared that short blocks in herringbone may leave little gaps, ours did, but you can fill obvious ones. Often the short ones were used in a square pattern, but no reason why you can't be creative.

Then sort it all out into piles, good condition, damaged, odd shaped. Place the blocks tar to tar, because once it gets onto the wood surface its a beggar to clean off. How much tar is on the side edges and surface? Old varnish chips off fairly easily.
Choose the cleanest ones and decide if you have enough to do your room.

If there is tar on the surface the easiest way to get it off is before you lay them. Let them get cold, the scrape off with a window scraper tool, or rough grade paper. It needs to be cold, to be brittle, to scrape off. I've used tar remover and liquids, but it smears it around, which will clog up your big expensive sanding pads, you'll wish you had got it off before that stage.

We sat in our garden with a pile of blocks at our feet, a small hand sander, a Stanley knife, and a towel over our laps, and scraped, sanded , scraped, sanded, scraped just the edges, It took days, filthy exhausting work, and hard on the wrist/hands. It was worth it though, because we couldn't afford a professional. I would love to have sent them "somewhere" to be prepared for me, but no sense wishing! It is very expensive to get a pro to do it all by hand, better to send them somewhere where they have machines. You could try a few yourself and then times it by 1000 to get the idea.

When it came to laying them, we bought plenty of adhesive, 25 tubes, cost about £60.

Decide your pattern, and which way you want it to run. Walk around and imagine the feeling, maybe lay a row or two to get a feel for it. We went for straight ahead as you walk in the room, but across adds a feeling of width. The herringbone one we restored in the lounge goes straight past the fireplace, not towards it, but if you have a bay window or double doors it seems to feel better when it heads towards these big features.

If you don't want to lay them to decide , use a long piece of masking tape, it'll give you the same idea.

So, if your floor is right, block edges are scraped clean and even, tar removed from top and edges, book the sander for hire.

If I had my time again I would lay out all the blocks and then glue them down. It was nerve wracking doing it free hand, who knows where our line would end up!!! We did use a guide line , draw on floor where your first run will be going, and stick to it, because a cm out becomes 3" by the time you reach the other side.
Also decide how it will look in doorways etc, if youre having an edge, I'd draw that off first, you will have the joy of chipping lots of diamond size bits to fill in between the border and the main floor. To cheat, remove the skirting and put it back on top! ( I didn't say that, lol!)

We used a big hoover shaped one, with a circular hand held for the edges. It still wont do into the corner 2 inches, so be prepared to do that by hand. I didn't like using the big hoover sized one, ran away and dug in, but other people have no trouble. With normal planks you would walk it along in same direction. But with herringbone parquet you need to do short small areas in different directions, so imagine using a hoover. The idea is not just to get the colour back to real wood but to get the whole floor feeling level, so there are no sticking up bits. You may have to sand down quiet hard to get rid of all the old colour. If you don't mind that fact that it is old, and bit rustic, its not such a problem to go in with the circular and take a bit more off in one area, but if you are going for super sleek smooth special, sell them all and buy new!
Sand with roughest grade first, and buy plenty of pads, more than you need x2, because you can always return the unused ones, its understood at point of hire, there's nothing worse than running out and having to dash out for more.
For best feel and shine sand over two or three times with gradually finer sanding pads. It makes the difference when you varnish or wax. Clean the floor well, brush and hoover to get all dust up, Varnish will bubble and feel rough if the wood is not really smooth, I haven't used wax, so not sure. Perhaps it'll make it more non slip, but old parquet is so lovely and organic, I've never found it slippery.

If you varnish, we used ronseal diamond hard clear, but there are lots to choose from, some are anti yellowing , good for pine.
Get a varnish brush, and a spare empty tin. Get down on your hands and knees and do each block slowly gently in a thin even coat, wiping off any suds on the empty tin, this stops the suds drying and feeling like sandpaper! Try not to go over the edges, or you'll get a double coat and possibly darker "ends"
Once dry, sand it back by hand or machine using very fine grade. Then you can go ahead and apply next coats a bit more quickly but keep the suds at bay.

Et viola!

Next time I am going to use gloss finish, because the satin "shine" faded quite quickly.

Hope I haven't put you off, I love my floors, its great to recycle, kind of satisfying to have done it ourselves, but ask me if I'd rather have sat back with a nice drink on the beach instead..............
jessegee
9 years ago
we used self levelling compound in kitchen, but not in bedroom, I'd use it if the floor is not level :))
jessegee
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Here's our first attempt at just sanding and varnishing our lounge floor!

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/parquet-floor-disaster-help-dsvw-vd~857793

The bedroom floor post, prep'd and laid ourselves

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/tiny-tall-bedroom-dsvw-vd~1185851

and here's the kitchen post, unfinished but the floor is in there.

https://www.houzz.co.uk/discussions/jesses-kitchen-what-kitchen-would-look-good-dsvw-vd~1015807

please dont feel obliged to read it all, but a flip through might give you some hints/tips

I had some really good advice from others, pro, and experienced, and lots of well wishers which kept us going in the darkest hours!

Am very excited for you! :)))
jackydahlhaus
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi Jessegee,
Just read (most) of you posts. Great advice and your floors look great! Definitely will go for the several layers of high gloss finish as well as I don't want to be on my knees polishing more often than I need to :). Good to read that it can be done as a DIY (and thanks again for the sanding machine tips). Not looking forward to the cleaning of the blocks though, but fortunately that will be more than half a year away (winter is just setting in, so will wait till warmer weather when we can sit outside)! I have to lovely teenagers that I can muster for some extra pocket money...
jessegee
9 years ago
Perfect solution, play fast cool music and pay them anything they ask!

So glad I could help, sorry post is so long, and one thing I forgot to say was about dust, its killer, anything you can do to contain it, suck it up, avoid breathing it, the better :)))

Look forward to hearing your story, and will be ready to offer encouraging cheers.
jackydahlhaus
Original Author
9 years ago
No worries about your post being long, it was a very good read!

Thanks about the dust comment too. Fortunately my DH bought all the tools you can imagine for woodworking (we're DIY-renovating the sash and case windows too), which includes a very good industrial type vacuum.

Unfortunately it will be a while before I have any progress on the floors as we have just started lifting the boards to do the plumbing (no heating upstairs yet...). And like I mentioned before, we will do the cleaning of the blocks next spring/summer.

We have been living in this 1896 old schoolhouse (where the teachers lived) since April now and I am amazed how much time it takes to actually find out what you really want to do with a place. They always say 'live in it for a while', but didn't know this would take over 6 months! And we still can't decide on the layout of the bathroom :)
jessegee
9 years ago
What a wonderful building, the history adds so much, if only the walls could talk :)))

I can imagine what a huge job you have ahead of you, and then some!

Sounds like you are more accomplished than us, you'll probably skip happily past the pitfalls we fell in to. Hope it all goes well, winter will fly by and before we know it you'll be done x

Parquet flooring: DIY or leave it to professionals?

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