Fine Home Ideas

Laying Parquet Flooring

June 10th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

Parquet flooring is one of the most distinctive ways to create a flooring surface for your home.

Apart from providing a durable surface, parquet flooring can be used to create a unique pattern to make a room stand out from ordinary hardwood flooring. This article will cover some of the features and briefly touch on laying parquet flooring.

Parquet flooring is a series of wooden tiles that are laid in a pattern. Each wooden tile consists of smaller wooden or laminate strips that form a pattern. Each tile can be made of hardwood strips or engineered parquet flooring that can consist of a wood veneer with plywood underneath. Plain patterns are a few strips in a vertical direction. More elaborate designs can be produced.

The idea of a parquet floor is sort of like a recurring pattern. One tile has a specific pattern and this pattern can be produced on a larger scale in the room itself by laying the tiles in a specific order. You can also have different types of wood species and colors to create different effects in the flooring like a border or even a checker board effect.

The idea of laying parquet flooring is to start from the center of the room and work out. Split the room into smaller squares based from the center point. As the individual tiles are square you have to turn the room into a sequence of larger squares that will fit the tiles in.

If the room is perfectly square then the job shouldn’t be too hard but rooms are rarely square. In reality you will have to adjust your measurements to fit. The best way to set the layout is to draw the larger squares on the underfloor with chalk or some other substance that can be rubbed out and redrawn.

The hardest bit is at the walls. It may be that the tiles do not fit flush into the remaining space between the wall and the last tile. So the tile will have to be cut to fit the remaining space.

Before the tiles are installed with adhesive, you should do a clean run. Lay the tiles without adhesive or glue. Make sure everything fits and that the patterns are not out or lopsided. Adjust the chalk lines as you see fit. Once you’ve done this once it becomes fairly straightforward.

Once you are happy that the adhesive free layout looks good, it’s time to put down the tiles for good. The adhesive that comes with parquet tiles will retain it’s grip for about 10 to 15 minutes so only spread it out in small patches.

Start from the center of the room and lay the tiles in a pyramid shape towards the walls. Place a tile on the adhesive, ensuring that it is square with the chalk lines or with the tile next to it. When you get to the walls you will have to fit the cut tile so that it is flush with the wall or spacer.

Parquet flooring is not as easy to lay as ordinary hardwood or engineered flooring. It takes a bit of planning to get it just right but it is well worth the effort when you have an original looking flooring surface.