For this job, we were called to repair a white oak parquet, adjust the border and add a new floor. Originally there was a wall and a fireplace in the center of the room. The contractor who did the patch work used OSB to patch the sub floor. Avi doesn’t like OSB. Avi takes out OSB and puts plywood. That makes Avi happy (this was a take from a Seinfeld episode … smile, we’re blogging again).
This white oak parquet floor was cut from a standard 20-inch (5.08-cm) stock. Looking at the parquet tiles, which were 5/16 by 10 by 10 inches, (7.937 mm x 25.4 cm x 25.4 cm), I knew they were not all the same size. Because the floor was originally wrapped around both sides of the fireplace, the layout lines were probably thrown off by just a hair. A hair off in a patterned floor is a big deal. Just ask the students at the last Master Craftsman School.
We removed the OSB and replaced it with plywood. Plywood has a superior holding power compared to OSB. Whenever possible in our installations, we use plywood. If the subfloor is OSB throughout the house, we install plywood over the OSB before installing our new floors.
Then we used 5/16-by-2-inch white oak strip flooring to make the slats for the parquet. The existing border had a purpleheart feature strip. We ended up reusing the feature strip in the new border layout. It took a little fuss fitting the new tiles in place, because they were not exactly all the same size, and the points in the existing floors were off here and there. That is pretty normal for a floor of this type. Knowing what you’re up against beforehand is better than not.
