DIY Redecoration

Week 21: Parquet Floor Laying

The new floor-layer guy did turn up on Monday morning – on time even! He spent the day finishing off the corners and edges of floor – there wasn’t much left to do but it was the most fiddly part, as strange shaped bits had to be cut off the parquet pieces, where they met the walls. Then he had to fill the bigger gaps between the pieces..

The next day he spent on sanding – with two different industrial sanding machines. The first one produced a rather drastic shave, the second smoothened the surface. It wasn’t as dusty as I’d anticipated but there was still quite a lot of dust covering the new base units.

The following two days were spent on the varnishing. I don’t quite understand why he didn’t apply the first coat on the Tuesday (the sanding was finished by lunch time). Given that he comes from the other end of town, it would have been more efficient to do it then and the second coat on the following day. He had to come all the way back twice for just one hour work! I know that builders are not famous for being brainy, but common sense really doesn’t require intelligence.

Never mind, by Friday the floor was done it looked like new, but not what I imagined.
I quite liked the natural color of the floor after it was sanded down. When it got varnished it looked red. After the second coat it looked a bit more brown but I still wasn’t entirely happy with it. The floor-layer told me that the floor will calm down in a couple of months and will look brown. I bloody hope so!

The sample Mahuhu piece, the original floor layer sanded and varnished for me, was medium brown – not red. I think I might have choosen the wrong floor varnish.  I had the option of using polyutherine or acrylic sealer or beeswax.  Beeswax was out of the question – yes, it smells good, it’s natural and it’s environmentally friendly – BUT it needs to be reapplied at least every six months! I’ve used acrylic floor varnish before – it needs improving. I would definitely not use it in a kitchen or a bathroom.  So, given that the new parquet floor was also installed in the kitchen area, I had to use polyutherine varnish.

The original floor-layer who walked out on us called on Friday, asking whether we wanted him to finish the job. It now seems to me that he was just playing a game – I think he had been due to do another job, and instead of postponing it, he used our situation to break off so that he could do that project. Anyway, he didn’t even mention the issue with the plasterer! I think he was a bit taken back that not only did we find a replacement floor-layer – but that the floor was finished and done with!

This week  we started to build the "wall of units" –  I’ll write about this next week, but as usual, it’s not as easy as it should be.