Parquet Flooring in Cardiff

The original tiled vestibule inside a Cardiff terrace door is the clue to what the rest of the house can carry: a patterned floor was part of these houses from the start. In a Pontcanna or Roath Park reception room the Marlow block goes in basketweave or brick bond on a plywood deck over levelled joists; where an original parquet is under the carpet in the Cathedral Road conservation area, it is restored, not replaced.

Whitchurch and Rhiwbina semis on a slab give the pattern the flattest base there is, once the surface is ground and the damp-proof membrane checked. At Plasdwr the screed is heated, and the block is the engineered Oxford construction. A Versailles panel wants a Cyncoed or Lisvane house broad enough to show whole panels; a terrace front room is too small for the square to repeat. Cutting waste is allowed for in the order.

Semi-detached houses are 30% of the homes in Cardiff, and the semi's knocked-through living room is the room most often floored in herringbone across Cardiff: a pattern floor gives a long room a centre. Set out from the middle of the room, not from a wall, and where the room crosses from timber onto the concrete of an extension the two bases are levelled to each other first, because a glued pattern shows every step in the base.

Terraced houses are 30% of the Cardiff 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.