What Is Parquet Flooring? Everything to Know
Upgrade Your Space With These Elegant Wood Patterns
The Spruce / Letícia Almeida
Reviewed by Johnathan Brewer
Parquet is a type of wood flooring made by arranging small slats of wood in distinct, repeating patterns. While traditional parquet floors were installed one piece at a time, most modern parquet flooring comes in tile form in which the wood slats are bonded to a backing material. Parquet tile flooring is installed by gluing, nailing, or stapling the tiles to the subfloor. Because the parquet strips are hardwood, parquet flooring is similar in look and performance to traditional solid-hardwood strip flooring.
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What Is Parquet Flooring Made Of?
Parquet flooring is made of narrow strips of hardwood joined to create a pattern directly on the floor or installed as prefinished parquet-style tiles. The tiles come in a few common sizes:
9 inches by 9 inches
12 inches by 12 inches
19 inches by 19 inches
The total thickness of tiles typically ranges from 5/16 inch to 3/4 inch. Parquet tiles usually include a mesh backing of paper, cloth, or plastic stitched with a thin metal or plastic skeleton. The hardwood top layer is most commonly oak but may also be maple, walnut, and other popular hardwood species.
Pros and Cons of Parquet Flooring
Pros
Aesthetic appeal: Parquet flooring is sophisticated and bold, making it a popular choice for formal settings such as living rooms, dining rooms, and foyers as well as in midcentury modern home styles.
Low-maintenance: Clean your flooring as you would any other hardwood flooring by simply sweeping and dry mopping your parquet at least once a week. It's also easy to prevent scratches by using rugs and mats beneath chairs.
Durable: Hardwood parquet is structurally sound and can hold up beautifully for decades.
Easy to install: Parquet strips and parquet tiles are thin, easy to cut, and can be easily arranged and often glued down to a perfectly flat subfloor rather than nailed.
Wood species options: You can choose from a wide variety of hardwood options to create a parquet floor design.
Cons
Too busy: The geometric patterns of parquet can be too visually busy and overwhelming for kitchens, bathrooms, and other small spaces and can lend a cluttered feel to the room.
Damage in damp spaces: Parquet can warp and cause other problems if used in damp environments or below grade in basements.
Potentially dated look: If you plan to sell your home, home buyers may view parquet as an outdated style.
Susceptible to marks: The wood is easily scratched and scuffed and these marks are hard to buff out of a parquet floor.
Refinishing and repairing can be difficult: Wood parquet may be tough to refinish because grain directions alternate on the hardwood pieces. To repair parquet, treat the floor as you would any other hardwood floor with scratches using methods such as sanding, wood fillers, and colorants depending on the severity of the damage.
Types of Parquet Flooring Designs
Regardless of your parquet design, each plank in the pattern is unique and individual. In parquetry, planks and strips are also known as "fingers." Here are the most popular parquet patterns:
Herringbone: Zigzag pattern using rectangular blocks or planks with straight ends
Chevron: Zigzag pattern using planks with ends that have a 45-degree angle to create a true V-shape
Basketweave: Wood planks appear to be interwoven under and over each other and appear like a woven basket
Checkerboard: Strips of wood create cubes that create a checkerboard pattern
Mosaic or brick (also called "square on square"): Thin wood strips of equal sizes create one square and squares are placed next to one another to create a pattern
Versailles: Diamond-shaped weave of wood strips
Unfinished vs. Prefinished Parquet
In its natural unfinished state, parquet is prone to staining and damage and must be finished to protect its hardwood surface. Unfinished tiles are sanded, stained, and finished on-site after the flooring is installed. This allows you to choose the color of stain or any type of finish you like, giving you a wealth of decorative options.
Prefinished parquet tiles are treated with an extremely durable, factory-applied wood finish. Because this is done industrially, the finish can be significantly more durable than one applied on-site. This also cuts down on the hassle and mess of applying a finish in your home.
Parquet Water Concerns
Parquet tiles fare slightly better in moist environments than custom hardwood parquet plank installations. The individual slats in tile form are less prone to expansion and contraction during humidity changes. Regardless, parquet is made of wood so both tiles and planks are still prone to warping, developing mold, and plumping in extremely wet, moist environments, such as heavily used bathrooms.
Refinishing a Parquet Floor
Parquet is essentially made of hardwood and therefore can be sanded and refinished. Some parquet tiles can be refinished roughly an equal number of times as hardwood plank flooring of similar thickness.
However, parquet floors are not quite as easy to refinish as regular hardwood planking because the grain of the material is not oriented in a consistent direction. Rather, the tiny slats of wood may be pointed in several different directions. This can lead to cross-grain scratching, which can be difficult to buff out. You may even need to resort to hand sanding in certain places to get the surface looking smooth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is parquet flooring expensive?
Parquet flooring ranges in price depending on whether it's a custom installation or parquet-style tiles. Custom parquet can cost on average $20 to $45 per square foot to install and finish. Parquet-style floor tiles cost much less and can be installed as a DIY project.
Is parquet flooring real wood?
Parquet floors are made out of narrow pieces of real wood, called planks or fingers, that are joined together to create patterns.
What are the disadvantages of parquet flooring?
Several cons include the floor's susceptibility to scratches and scuffs and the fact that parquet can be difficult to repair because of its varied segments and grain directions.
Read the original article on The Spruce.
