Wood You Like F.A.Q. & News

New Wood Floor Guide: "3 Easy Steps to Clean and Mantain Your Parquet Floor"

3 Easy Steps to Clean and Maintain Your Parquet Floor (or any other wooden floor)

What is a nicer surprise than to remove the carpet from a room in your home and to discover a valuable original parquet floor is hiding beneath it! Especially when you consider that installing a brand new parquet floor costs around £ 125.00 - £ 145.00 per sq m. And that’s just for a simple herringbone or basket weave pattern.

Your new discovery will at least need some TLC to bring back its grand lustre it had before it was ‘covered-up’. Follow our “3 easy steps" below and you will start enjoying your valuable, easy to clean and anti-allergic original parquet floor in no time at all.

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New Wood Floor Guide: "7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"

7 Easy Steps To Repair/Restore You Parquet Floor

What is a nicer surprise than to remove the carpet from a room in your home and to discover a valuable original parquet floor is hiding beneath it! Especially when you consider that installing a brand new parquet floor costs around £ 125.00 - £ 145.00 per sq m. And that’s just for a simple herringbone or basket weave pattern.

Your new discovery will at least need some TLC to bring back its grand lustre it had before it was ‘covered-up’, see our “3 easy steps to clean and maintain your parquet floor” for this.

If your floor is missing some blocks, has damaged blocks – damages from plumbing comes to mind - or you notice areas where the blocks no longer stuck firmly down on the underfloor just follow the 7 Easy Steps below to repair/restore it and start enjoying your valuable, easy to clean and anti-allergic original parquet floor in no time at all. For all materials needed we’ve included a list of quality products underneath.

Read more....

Amorim (Wicanders - WicCork manufacturer) awarded 3 prizes

Corporate Register (online directory for corporate non-financial reports) recently awarded Amorim 3 prizes for its 'sustainability report':

• 3rd in the category "Openness and Honesty"
• 5th in the category "Best First-time Sustainability Report"
• 6th in the category "The Relevance & Materiality award"

Amorim's report - checked and approved by an independent institute - describes very openly the company's strategies, effects and influences on the environmental and social-economical developments. With these prizes Amorim receives international recognition for its contribution to an effective sustainable development.
(Amorim's report was selected out of over 300 companies from more than 40 different countries.)

Source: Parketplein/Amorim 24.04.08

Part of Amorim's sustainability report explains the biodiversity and the fight against desertification:

Cork oaks are evergreen trees that play a fundamental role in the fight against desertification of large areas, not just in Europe but also in the Northern African countries of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria where cork forests are often the only obstacle to the fast-advancing Sahara Desert.

Cork oaks, through their unique ability to thrive in sandy and low-nutrient soils, allow for the crucial fixation of organic matter and water-retention capabilities. The resulting environmental balance creates the ideal ecosystem where countless animal and vegetal species prosper. These include some of the world’s most endangered species, such as the Imperial Eagle, the Black Stork and Europe’s last wild feline, the Iberian Lynx.

While biodiversity is crucial, its co-existence in harmony with human economic and social activity is also fundamental. By providing environmentally sound jobs to countless farming communities, cork forests not only foster biodiversity but also provide the means to sustain and fix populations to the land, preventing additional migrations to already-crowded cities.

Wood You Like congratulates Amorim - our WicCork manufacturer - with this achievement. In our showroom we have a large selection of the WicCork floorboards range on display in many colours and designs. Because besides coming from a sustainable and eco-friendly source, cork doens't have to be boring brown any more!

Testimonial on Eco-friendliness from a very young nature lover

Earlier this year we gifted, through the post, a little miracle of nature – a beautiful, locally handpicked, acorn to many of our contacts (perhaps even you).

We hope they all have given it a honourable spot in their garden and that they will undoubtedly get many years of pleasure from this most magnificent of trees as it matures over the next 40 years.

Now it’s time to share ‘the story’ behind our unusual gift.

In September last year we received an Oak sapling from one of our clients together with a mind-provoking letter:

The letter goes on to thank us for the installation, but of course we gratefully accepted Tom’s gift (see picture right) and have given it a good home.

All our wooden flooring, from Basic Oak to Bespoke, come from sustainable sources, be it FSC or PEFC certified. Thanks to sustainable forest management more trees are planted than are harvested.  In fact, European re-forestation grows by an area the size of Cyprus every year!

You can, just as our little nature-loving son of our client, rest assured that purchasing your wooden floor from Wood You Like will be an eco-friendly purchase – one with a delivery time of 4 weeks, not 40 years!

Ps: all our clients who buy a natural wooden floor during our 5th Anniversary Celebrating year will receive our very popular ‘Walking with Wood’ comfy clog-style slippers – 1 pair for free for every purchase of 10 sq m or more.

How to restore a Parquet floor - what to be aware of

This week we received another question on the subject of a rediscovered parquet floor:

Good Afternoon,

I wonder if I could pick your brains a little.  We have just uncovered a parquet floor - 6 bricks @ 4.5"x7/8" in blocks at 90 degree angles to one another. Floor area is 14'x11' & rectangular - no cupboards or inaccessible areas.  Mahogany wood or so I'm told - the wood is certainly very dark all the way through.  The floor has had some previous repairs after two rooms were knocked together & plumbing works (around 6 years ago).  We are planning on restoring the floor to leave it exposed now.

To do so we need to sand the floor & then seal & varnish it (need a pretty heavy duty finish as the only back door to our garden is through the living room & we have a dog with a number of very scratchy nails on each corner).

I wondered if you could answer the following questions:

1. Assuming that the floor is prepared & suitably coloured already would it be correct to say that I would need to seal the floor first (~4 hours to dry) then varnish 2-3 times (~ 8 hours to dry between each coating).  Is this about right (depending on the specific instructions on any manufacturers products of course)?
2. I am planning on having some quotes for professionals to do this work as well as costing it to do ourselves but I wondered could you give me some sort of 'ball park' idea of the cost of such a renovation?
3. What sort of time frame would you expect such renovations to take?
4. I cannot seem to find anyone registered with the BWFA in or near Wiltshire.  Are you able to recommend (or warn me to avoid) any companies local to me?

Hope you can help me - I'm trying to educate myself sufficiently as I have invited a couple of companies to quote to me.

Thank you so much,

Kind Regards

Mrs S N

Our tips on what any company quoting for a particular job like this should do/use and products we recommend:

Thank you for your question. Nice find a floor like that!

Who ever is going to restore this floor should note the following: any loose blocks? If so with what material were they glued to the floor - presumably bitumen. Any loose blocks should be cleaned off this black stuff as best as possible, likewise with the any visual residue on the underfloor. Then the blocks can be glued back to the underfloor with modern adhesive, but bitumen residue will have an effect on the bonding time (normally 4 - 8 hours, with bitumen involved it could take upto 24 - 36 hours!).

Also, when sanding the floor use a belt-sander not a drum-sander (ask any company who's quoting for this work what type of sander they're plannig to use and insist on a belt-sander).
A hard wearing finish could indeed be varnish - modern varnish sometimes include this so-called sealer - but we ourselves prefer HardWaxOil natural which brings out the natural character of the wood better than varnish, is hard wearing and small damages can be easier repaid than when varnish is used.

It's hard for us to give you a 'ball-park' figure without having seen the floor in situ - i.e. not knowing exactly the amount of work it would involve - but between low-end and high-end of work needed: between £ 35.00 and £ 50.00 per sq m ex VAT including the finishing materials.

Hope this helps

Kind Regards
Wood You Like Ltd

Hi Karin,

Just a quick note to thank you so much for you immediate reply which was much appreciated & which very definitely does help.  I also would like to compliment you on your extensive website which I have found fabulously useful & informative.

Kind Regards

Mrs S N

(If you have a question on this subject, or any other wood flooring related issue, fill in this simple form and we will personally give you our best advice as quick as possible)

See also our Wood Floor Guide: "7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"

Discovering a Oak parquet floor - how to restore?

One of the questions we received last week:

Dear Wood You Like

I have just discovered under carpet a floor of oak wood blocks (in a herringbone pattern and in a generally good condition). The location is the hallway (approximately 9 square meters).

80% of the blocks were loose so I have lifted them all and cleaned them as much as I can, however I haven't been able to remove the bitumen (which is generally only a thin layer) that held them to the concrete floor.

Once I have relaid them I would like to sand and satin a lighter more even colour.

My questions are:

1. What can I use to re-stick them to the floor that will ensure adhesion, ease of application and fairly quick use afterwards. I have had variuous suggestions that include: Everbuild Pink Grip grab adhesive; Everbuild 908 DPM; Ruberoid syntheprufe; Laybond L17 Woodblock. What would you recommend of these or of any other product?

2. What dye/stain product would you advise?

3. What method of gap filling (and product) would be best?

4. What sealing product to maintain a hard wearing finish?

Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mr G.B.

Our answer:

If there is only a thin layer of bitumen left on blocks and underfloor it is best to use Lecol5500 F.Ball B91

Be aware that the residue of bitumen will increase the time it takes for the adhesive to bond properly. Normally it takes around 6- 8 hours, it could take up to 24 hours or longer when there is bitumen involved. So be careful when walking on it and when sanding the floor.

As for the finish layer, we recommend a coloured HardWaxOil, this gives a long term protection and a natural look, no matter what colour you use. It stains and seals the wood in two layers - no other products needed.

For filler (to be mixed with sands-dust of the second sanding) we recommend Pallmann Pall-x-Kitt or Bona Kemi Mix & Fill

Hope this helps to restore your rediscovered parquet floor, a valued possession in any house!

See also our Wood Floor Guide:
"7 Easy Steps to Repair/Restore Your Parquet Floor"