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Default Restoring parquet flooring

We discovered on moving in to our house a month or so ago, that under a
vile red carpet in the living room was some beautiful parquet flooring,
presumably dating from when the house was built in 1956. We've now
finished painting the ceiling and walls and have lifted the carpet to
look at the parquetry more closely.

Clearly, previous owners have shown little regard for it as it has
numerous areas of misted paint spattering and others with larger smears
and stains of paint. In a few other places, the bitumen layer that the
floor stands on has seemed through the gaps in the wood blocks. I have
put some photos of this on my website he

http://www.marlow.org.uk/parquet/

Unaffected areas look fine - a little dull through having been under
underlay for at least 20 years, but nothing that a good clean won't
sort out. But we're wondering what the best way of restoring the
paint-spattered areas will be - scraping? sanding? something chemical?
Any advice gratefully received.

Gareth

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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On 2006-10-15 12:33:42 +0100, said:

We discovered on moving in to our house a month or so ago, that under a
vile red carpet in the living room was some beautiful parquet flooring,
presumably dating from when the house was built in 1956. We've now
finished painting the ceiling and walls and have lifted the carpet to
look at the parquetry more closely.

Clearly, previous owners have shown little regard for it as it has
numerous areas of misted paint spattering and others with larger smears
and stains of paint. In a few other places, the bitumen layer that the
floor stands on has seemed through the gaps in the wood blocks. I have
put some photos of this on my website he

http://www.marlow.org.uk/parquet/

Unaffected areas look fine - a little dull through having been under
underlay for at least 20 years, but nothing that a good clean won't
sort out. But we're wondering what the best way of restoring the
paint-spattered areas will be - scraping? sanding? something chemical?
Any advice gratefully received.

Gareth


What a shame to cover floors like these with carpet. I expect that
they had carpet in the bathroom as well.

You may well need to sand it to address some of the dings and scratches
ultimately (or treat them as patina), but that needs to be carefully
considered because the wood can often be quite thin. A typical
problem on floors like these was the impact of stiletto heels and
little indendations.

I would address the bitumen issue first with scraping and perhaps a
suitable solvent to avoid it being spread around the surface during
subsequent operations.

Following that, a chemical paint stripper to remove old paint, varnish
and so forth.

Finally a light sanding.

If you want to address scratches and dings in the surface at this stage
you can try an iron and a wet cloth. This causes the wood fibres to
swell and may take most or all of a dent out. It usually won't do
anything about missing chunks of wood.

For a finish, I quite like oil and wax mixture for a wooden floor
because I don't like glossy varnishes. It does mean having some kind
of floor polisher ideally though.

I think it would be well worth the effort.


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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On Oct 15, 1:27 pm, Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-10-15 12:33:42 +0100, said:

What a shame to cover floors like these with carpet. I expect that
they had carpet in the bathroom as well.


That's uncanny. Are you stalking me?

I would address the bitumen issue first with scraping and perhaps a
suitable solvent to avoid it being spread around the surface during
subsequent operations.


Ok. That makes sense.

Following that, a chemical paint stripper to remove old paint, varnish
and so forth.


Nitro-mors, or something less aggressive? I've had a suggestion of
meths for the emulsion and turps/white spirit for the gloss.

If you want to address scratches and dings in the surface at this stage
you can try an iron and a wet cloth. This causes the wood fibres to
swell and may take most or all of a dent out. It usually won't do
anything about missing chunks of wood.


This is the ironic thing: it's been protected by carpet for at least 20
years so it's just the paint. The rest is in great nick.

For a finish, I quite like oil and wax mixture for a wooden floor
because I don't like glossy varnishes. It does mean having some kind
of floor polisher ideally though.


Ok, thanks for that. I prefer a more matt finish too.

I think it would be well worth the effort.


We'd talked about laying some kind of stripwood flooring on the ground
floor when our offer on the house was accepted - you can't imagine how
pleased we were when the previous owner mentioned "that there might be
parquet under the carpet". I've made a little start already and it's
looking *so* good.

Thanks again,
Gareth



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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On Oct 15, 3:17 pm, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:
To remove the paint, bitumen and any old wax
polish use wire wool and white spirit with plenty of elbow grease!


I gave it a go with white spirit and a large plastic abrasive pad (like
a large pan scourer) and it's coming up a treat. You're not wrong about
the elbow grease, though

A light sanding will then even out the colour, but remember parquet can be
quite thin. I'd use a random orbit sander rather than a belt sander.


OK.

Check outhttp://www.rustins.co.uk/product.htm?chggroup=4for floor
finishes.


Great - thanks.

Gareth

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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On Oct 15, 4:27 pm, Roger wrote:
ISTR that the miniature parquet is rather thin so sanding is probably
best avoided if at all possible.


Loose pieces appear to be about 8mm thick. I'm more worried about
loosening too much of it if I'm aggressive with the sanding - hence
doing it by hand.

It was said at the time that there was such a severe shortage of good
timber that new houses couldn't have suspended wood floors on the ground
floor so if you wanted a wood floor you had to make do with parquet over
solid concrete.


You learn something every day!

Thanks,
Gareth

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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On 2006-10-15 22:29:35 +0100, said:

On Oct 15, 1:27 pm, Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-10-15 12:33:42 +0100, said:

What a shame to cover floors like these with carpet. I expect that
they had carpet in the bathroom as well.


That's uncanny. Are you stalking me?


Well it was either going to be that or laminate flooring.


I would address the bitumen issue first with scraping and perhaps a
suitable solvent to avoid it being spread around the surface during
subsequent operations.


Ok. That makes sense.

Following that, a chemical paint stripper to remove old paint, varnish
and so forth.


Nitro-mors, or something less aggressive? I've had a suggestion of
meths for the emulsion and turps/white spirit for the gloss.


I would start with the less agressive first, but realistically it will
probably end up being Nitromors.

Fine sanding might be another way. You could try that because in most
of the photos the paint doesn't look too bad.


If you want to address scratches and dings in the surface at this stage
you can try an iron and a wet cloth. This causes the wood fibres to
swell and may take most or all of a dent out. It usually won't do
anything about missing chunks of wood.


This is the ironic thing: it's been protected by carpet for at least 20
years so it's just the paint. The rest is in great nick.

For a finish, I quite like oil and wax mixture for a wooden floor
because I don't like glossy varnishes. It does mean having some kind
of floor polisher ideally though.


Ok, thanks for that. I prefer a more matt finish too.

I think it would be well worth the effort.


We'd talked about laying some kind of stripwood flooring on the ground
floor when our offer on the house was accepted - you can't imagine how
pleased we were when the previous owner mentioned "that there might be
parquet under the carpet". I've made a little start already and it's
looking *so* good.

Thanks again,
Gareth



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Default Restoring parquet flooring


wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 15, 4:27 pm, Roger wrote:
ISTR that the miniature parquet is rather thin so sanding is probably
best avoided if at all possible.


Loose pieces appear to be about 8mm thick. I'm more worried about
loosening too much of it if I'm aggressive with the sanding - hence
doing it by hand.

It was said at the time that there was such a severe shortage of good
timber that new houses couldn't have suspended wood floors on the ground
floor so if you wanted a wood floor you had to make do with parquet over
solid concrete.


You learn something every day!


I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with traditional
Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish. They (ICI or
whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal branded one but there
seems no trace of it now. There must be an equivalent out there.

H


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Default Restoring parquet flooring

wrote:

We discovered on moving in to our house a month or so ago, that under a
vile red carpet in the living room was some beautiful parquet flooring,
presumably dating from when the house was built in 1956. We've now
finished painting the ceiling and walls and have lifted the carpet to
look at the parquetry more closely.

Clearly, previous owners have shown little regard for it as it has
numerous areas of misted paint spattering and others with larger smears
and stains of paint. In a few other places, the bitumen layer that the
floor stands on has seemed through the gaps in the wood blocks. I have
put some photos of this on my website he

http://www.marlow.org.uk/parquet/

Unaffected areas look fine - a little dull through having been under
underlay for at least 20 years, but nothing that a good clean won't
sort out. But we're wondering what the best way of restoring the
paint-spattered areas will be - scraping? sanding? something chemical?
Any advice gratefully received.

Gareth


If it were mine I'd try to avoid sanding where possible, as this would
do its appearance no favours, as well as the possibility of pulling
pieces up. Last time I did a wood floor it was a mess but almost all
came good just from thorough cleaning. Sanding of wood floors is much
overused imho.


NT

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Default Restoring parquet flooring

Hi Gareth,

We moved into an early 70's house last year.
It also has original Parquet flooring.
It was in a similar condition to yours.
We had a quote from a company that specialised
in floor restoration and they charged £30 a
square/m. It would have worked out to about £2K!

We hired a floor sander and used the finest 2
paper grades along with using a belt sander for
the edges. The teak turned a very light tan colour
It looked rubbish. We were concerened....

However... once the floor varnish was added,
Ronseal diamond hard gloss.
The results were simply stunning! A deep colour,
beautiful grain. A number of people have commented
how nice our floor is. Well worth it.
(BTW to buy new parquet and get it fitted would
have cost us thousands.)
Total cost about £150 plus 3 days hard graft
and lots of orange dust!
Probably the most cost effective DIY we have
ever undertaken but you have to be prepared
for dust, white paper suit time!
I will upload some photos for you to look at.
If you want any more info let me know.

Matthew

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HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal


Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


Techniocally known as an oleo resinous seal. Great stuff, actually
penetrates the surface rather than forming a coating on top, so its great
for wood floors that are splintering etc.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257


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"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
.uk...
HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal


Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


No no, you misunderstand, I meant that they used to do a water based polish
that was suitable as a maintenance polish after you had finished with the
Bourne Seal.

Now I come to think of it was called "Bourne Shine", haven't seen it
anywhere for a while so I use Johnson's Klear Floor Shine as a cheap easy to
source alternative, looks just as good but maybe not as wear resisting.


Techniocally known as an oleo resinous seal. Great stuff, actually
penetrates the surface rather than forming a coating on top, so its great
for wood floors that are splintering etc.



It's lovely in that the colour and character of the wood continue to develop
year on year. Very very nice.

H




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The message k
from "The Medway Handyman" contains
these words:

Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.


Talking of Bourne Seal what happened to Joe Stahlin (sp). I had a brief
period of absence from this ng a year or 3 back and when I returned he
was gone? (Too large a volume of traffic and I hadn't confine Dribble to
my killfile).

--
Roger Chapman
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Default Restoring parquet flooring

On 2006-10-16 20:52:04 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal


Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


Techniocally known as an oleo resinous seal. Great stuff, actually
penetrates the surface rather than forming a coating on top, so its
great for wood floors that are splintering etc.


But it is shiny I believe ........


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The Medway Handyman wrote:

Wire wool is a lot better!


Not on oak blocks though. Steel residues left in oak will give rise to
iron staining.

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HLAH wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in
message .uk...
HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal


Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


No no, you misunderstand, I meant that they used to do a water based
polish that was suitable as a maintenance polish after you had
finished with the Bourne Seal.


Sorry! Most water pased emulsion polishes are much the same, depends on the
solids content.

Now I come to think of it was called "Bourne Shine", haven't seen it
anywhere for a while so I use Johnson's Klear Floor Shine as a cheap
easy to source alternative, looks just as good but maybe not as wear
resisting.


ISTR that Klear is only about 15% solids. Really good stuff is 25%.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257


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Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-10-16 20:52:04 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal


Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


Techniocally known as an oleo resinous seal. Great stuff, actually
penetrates the surface rather than forming a coating on top, so its
great for wood floors that are splintering etc.


But it is shiny I believe ........


Hmmm. Not especially, more of a sheen.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257




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On 2006-10-17 19:14:07 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-10-16 20:52:04 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal

Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.

Techniocally known as an oleo resinous seal. Great stuff, actually
penetrates the surface rather than forming a coating on top, so its
great for wood floors that are splintering etc.


But it is shiny I believe ........


Hmmm. Not especially, more of a sheen.


OK. The reason for highlighting it was my preference for matt,
natural and maintainable finishes and the OP felt the same.

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"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
.uk...
HLAH wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in
message .uk...
HLAH wrote:

I would lightly sand it down to clean wood and then finish with
traditional Bourne Seal. Maintain with a water based acrylic polish.
They (ICI or whoever owned the brand) used to make a Bourne Seal

Cuprinol. Still called Bourne Seal. Or Original Bourne Seal.

branded one but there seems no trace of it now. There must be an
equivalent out there.


No no, you misunderstand, I meant that they used to do a water based
polish that was suitable as a maintenance polish after you had
finished with the Bourne Seal.


Sorry! Most water pased emulsion polishes are much the same, depends on
the solids content.

Now I come to think of it was called "Bourne Shine", haven't seen it
anywhere for a while so I use Johnson's Klear Floor Shine as a cheap
easy to source alternative, looks just as good but maybe not as wear
resisting.


ISTR that Klear is only about 15% solids. Really good stuff is 25%.


You are most likely correct, Bourne Shine was quite milky in appearance
whilst Klear is, erm, clear :-)

H


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On Oct 16, 4:11 pm, "Matthew" wrote:

We moved into an early 70's house last year.
It also has original Parquet flooring.
It was in a similar condition to yours.
We had a quote from a company that specialised
in floor restoration and they charged £30 a
square/m. It would have worked out to about £2K!


Somehow I'm not surprised!

We hired a floor sander and used the finest 2
paper grades along with using a belt sander for
the edges. The teak turned a very light tan colour
It looked rubbish. We were concerened....


I can imagine.

However... once the floor varnish was added,
Ronseal diamond hard gloss.
The results were simply stunning! A deep colour,
beautiful grain. A number of people have commented
how nice our floor is. Well worth it.
(BTW to buy new parquet and get it fitted would
have cost us thousands.)


Absolutely - you can imagine how pleased we were to find it there.

Total cost about £150 plus 3 days hard graft
and lots of orange dust!
Probably the most cost effective DIY we have
ever undertaken but you have to be prepared
for dust, white paper suit time!


Excellent.

I will upload some photos for you to look at.
If you want any more info let me know.


That would be great.

Cheers,
Gareth

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On Oct 16, 8:53 pm, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:
wrote:
On Oct 15, 3:17 pm, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:
To remove the paint, bitumen and any old wax
polish use wire wool and white spirit with plenty of elbow grease!


I gave it a go with white spirit and a large plastic abrasive pad
(like a large pan scourer) and it's coming up a treat. You're not
wrong about the elbow grease, though

Wire wool is a lot better!


I'm picking up the thread at the weekend so I'll get some tomorrow.

G

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