Along Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, a custom-engineered wood floor infuses an antique spirit into a newly renovated apartment. The residence spans 6,000 square feet and features chevron parquet flooring alongside the parquet pattern “Manor Rae,” a design originally created by Oshkosh Designs that is characterized by overlapping planks arranged around a diamond-shaped center. The floors are all engineered black walnut, and the pattern was cut by hand and assembled in-house by Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Signature Innovations. General Manager Tom Koczur says the apartment’s designer wanted intricate parquetry throughout the apartment to bring beautiful craftsmanship that is common in high-end historic Chicago apartments. At the same time, the engineered wood was chosen because the old building didn’t have any humidity control.
The living room floor features 680 individually hand-assembled 18-by-18-inch Manor Rae panels, each scraped by hand to open the grain, allowing for deep stain penetration and a rich, antique look. Koczur loves the “wavy” texture hand-scraping gives the floor, saying, “it looks like it’s been walked on for years.”
In the narrow hallways, the team installed 1,194 custom-made 3-inch-wide pieces of chevron. Koczur says the chevron pattern added difficulty to the project because each hallway varied in width, so each wing had a slightly different pattern. To maintain visual cohesion, a square envelope pattern was devised where all hallways converged, integrating planks of various lengths. “It gives the illusion that all the chevrons in each hallway are the same size, which they are not,” Koczur says. Because of the complexity and risk of visible gaps in the chevron work, a specialized company fabricated the boards to the exact specs. But everything else—from cutting and dry-fitting the parquet to assembly and finishing—was completed in-house by Signature Innovations before the installation, ensuring flawless results on-site.
All the floors were tongue-and-grooved and custom-laid over a plywood subfloor. Portions of the floors were framed with black marble. Clear epoxy was applied to seal the junctions where the wood met the stone to prevent moisture migration.
The flooring phase of the project took 11 months, partly due to the need to flatten the uneven subfloor. Once installed, the team applied multiple coats of hardwax oil, giving the floor a durable, satin-sheen finish built to last for years.
SUPPLIERS: Abrasive: Festool | Adhesive, buffer, moisture barrier: Bona | Filler: Timbermate | Finish: Pallmann | Moisture meter: Lignomat | Nailer: Bostitch
