Antique Floors Luxembourg
Flooring
Patrick Snitselaar salvages old oak beams and flooring from France for resale to Europe and North America.
Much of the old oak is converted into flooring. The traditional flooring in France was Wide Oak Planking in agricultural and rustic buildings, and Parquet in Town Houses, Manoirs and Chateaux. L'Atelier re-manufacture Parquet in the absolutely authentic manner, using no glue, but simple tongue and groove held together with oak pegs.
Many different styles of traditional Parquet are made to order. Parquet de Versailles (Left and Above) is the most popular and well-known, dating from the seventeenth century. All the panels are around 3ft square. The layouts show two traditional French ways of laying the panels, above which are the two types of panel, diagonal and square, of which a larger detailed version can be seen above.
Other more flamboyant styles are also available. Shown left is a floor made from octagonal and square panels with a decorated border, typically found in a larger nineteenth century French chateaux. This has a special border, roughly 18inches across, with a star corner.
This variation, using the same 3ft module, will create a floor that appears divided into 18inch squares, offset diagonally to the walls of the room.
A herringbone infill is also traditional for eighteenth century chateaux and manoirs, probably mostly seen in smaller buildings. This was also revived and popular in the French Arts & Crafts revival between 1900 and 1920.
Finally, this floor is a simple way to span heavy oak joists with a tongue and groove infill system that combines the features of a formally panelled floor with normal planking. It would have been found in smaller houses, and provided an economical way of using small pieces of timber between the longer planks.