I've just sanded my parquet flooring down and want to polish it what's
Clare Kelly
4 years ago
varnish
polish
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4 years agoRelated Discussions
Parquet flooring: DIY or leave it to professionals?
Comments (13)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.................See MoreI want my through lounge to be just a living area
Comments (16)Apologies for the radio silence. My wifi has been down. Thank you Carolina for your input. You are all so giving of your time. I think I've finally settled on elements of all of the ideas, but would really appreciate some final input, if you can visualise what I am trying to get across. The "down time" has given me some space to reflect and also to look at furniture. I dragged my other half to DFS and Sofology this weekend, much to his dismay! :) I'm looking at moving the door, as suggested by MATH to the other side of the support wall. That would give a bigger expanse for the TV to sit on a nice big unit, more central along that wall. With a big Loch Leven sofa from DFS in charcoal leather along the opposite wall. I'm thinking of the small Joules Windsor (DFS) in yellow velvet for in front of the bay. This would give us ample seating around the telly. I'll still have enough room for 2 big comfy fireside chairs in charcoal velvet, a square charcoal leather pouffe and a coffee table. I have dark stripped floorboards and so will probably have white walls, big monochrome prints on the walls and lots of scatter cushions to bring colours together. I know you have all been so generous with your time and ideas so far. What do you think of this plan?...See MoreI’ve had my kitchen decorated this way for 3 years but it’s too dark
Comments (16)Your kitchen is gorgeous! Ours is similar in layout and darkness. We went with f&b Dimpse for the cabinets as it’s very light. I’d love a lighter worktop too but can’t justify replacing perfectly good granite. Likewise we have dark flooring (slate) - I’d love a parquet floor but again can’t justify scrapping something that is perfectly ok. We’ve painted our walls pure white and it’s fab. (And cheap). Photo not the best as it was taken at night - however the wall and cabinet colours have most definitely lightened up the whole room....See MoreCan I restore this parquet flooring?
Comments (2)hi Elizabeth, The floor that you have is nice and is laid with an integral backing from your photos. it is thin as the pattern is small and it is an overlay floor, using the substrate for the strength. you can certainly lift the floor and relay it in a room of your choice. with time and patience I'm sure you will be able to restore the floor yourself, if this is something you want to do yourself. the original floorboards will be ok underneath the parquet, although they may require sanding to remove residual glue. you will need a slight transition strip at the door to get you down to the existing floor height, but it will look fine. it may be worth getting a flooring company to give you a quote for the sanding as this can be a challenge. good luck and enjoy your new home!! best Rowland...See MoreSonia
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Clare KellyOriginal Author