Herringbone Flooring in Leicester

Stoneygate and Oadby have the hallways a herringbone floor is bought for in Leicester, wide enough for the broader Oxford block to read as a woven surface from the front door to the stairs; the finer block belongs in the narrower hall of a Clarendon Park terrace. Either way the pattern is set out from the hall’s centre line so the cut blocks land evenly against both skirtings.

A pattern telegraphs a dip in the base that a plank floor would hide, so the plywood deck over the levelled joists is checked with a straight edge before the first block is glued. On the slab of a Braunstone semi the base is flat once the membrane is checked; at the Waterside the screed is heated and the engineered block is the construction to use. A diagonal layout wastes more in cutting than a plank floor does, and the order allows for it.

Semi-detached houses are 36% of the homes in Leicester, and in a semi the herringbone usually goes into the living room, often a knocked-through one. A pattern gives a long room a centre; set it out from the middle, and where the timber front floor meets the concrete extension the two are levelled to each other before the first block, because a glued pattern records every step in the base.

With terraced houses at 29% of the Leicester stock, the Leicester hallway is a narrow one, and that is the room herringbone was made for: the diagonal pattern draws the eye along the length and the hall reads wider than it is. The smaller 90 x 450 mm block keeps the pattern in proportion. Over a suspended timber floor the blocks are glued to a ply overlay; the rigid-vinyl herringbone clicks together over an underlay and needs no glue.