Parquet Flooring in Cambridge

A narrow Mill Road terrace loses a large pattern before it repeats, so block size is the decision in Cambridge: the finer Oxford block or the Marlow block in brick bond for a terrace front room, the broader block for a De Freville or Newnham reception room. Either goes on a plywood deck over levelled joists, and where a level change leads to a rear extension the pattern is set out for each level separately.

Where an original parquet survives inside the Historic Core or De Freville conservation areas, restoring it is the first option. At Darwin Green and Eddington the screed is heated and the block is the engineered Oxford construction, because a solid block gaps over heat. A Versailles panel wants a Newnham villa broad enough to show several whole panels, and the order allows for the cutting waste a pattern creates.

Flats are 35% of the homes in the Cambridge district, and a pattern floor in a flat is a glued floor over a concrete slab, which is the simplest base a parquet can have. The lease is the constraint: where it asks for impact-sound performance, the build-up includes an acoustic layer under the blocks, and that layer has to be one the adhesive is approved for. Ask before ordering.

Terraced houses are 28% of the Cambridge stock, and a terraced hallway is where a herringbone floor earns its reputation: the pattern leads the eye down a narrow space and makes it read longer. The base is the work. A pattern floor is glued, so the old suspended boards are overlaid with ply, screwed down and levelled; the 90 x 450 mm Oxford blocks suit the proportions of a terrace better than the 125 x 600 mm ones.