Let’s analyze an important element of any house: the floor, you know, that horizontal surface in which everything remains. The floor defines the actual living space enclosed by the walls.

The more civilized a nation is, the more materials it uses for flooring. In the rural villages of Central Asia, where people work in their fields and gardens, their houses do not have a floor, the floor is made of dense clay. The rich cover their floors with rugs made from camel wool, and the poor with cheap, fine rugs. Woodless Central Asia had no suitable material for floors for poor people and only the richest people could afford ceramic floors made from burnt clay.

In Europe, wood used to be the most common flooring material. And if we follow the evolution of wood as a flooring material, it becomes very obvious that the width of this coating changed according to the ability of people to work with it. As long as everything was done with a single axis, the width of the wooden boards was 100 to 120 mm. When the chainsaw was invented, the width was reduced to 40-50mm. The milling machines made it possible to use boards from 16 to 30 mm wide.

I am not familiar with a better flooring material than wood: it is the most humane, warm, clean, practical, aesthetic, durable and easy to maintain. Of course I am referring to real wood, be it parquet (made from harder wood) or wood boards (made from softer wood).

The most durable wooden floor is parquet. Although it is not very wide (16 mm), it can last a century, with proper care and 3 or 4 renewal cycles. During polishing, up to 7 mm of its width can be detached and after being lacquered it remains as new.

Naturally, the laying of parquet requires compliance with technology and rigor. I would advise against laying parquet in spaces where it can get wet: kitchen, toilets and bathrooms. However, in the corridors, bedrooms, living room and dining room it looks perfect, neat and solid.

Parquet flooring can be done to anyone’s taste, looking simple and modest or stunningly beautiful with elegant patterns and ornaments on the floor. I have seen various types of Vietnamese parquet. Its color ranged from lemon yellow to flamingo pink – that country is rich in exotic woods. No doubt, a talented designer can turn these colors into “lace” on the floor.

The durability of parquet depends on the base on which it is laid. The wooden base that does not dry out or crack (such as multi-layer plywood) is very good for parquet.

Speaking of real parquet, we must mention all its similar, cheaper and less durable floors. The most popular is laminate: flooring made from thin layers of wood bonded together by heat and pressure applied simultaneously. Laminate floors have a high-resolution photo of wood on the top layer and are covered with a high-quality lacquer. Laminate boards fit together and look a lot like parquet. As a rule, it consists of narrow boards of different widths, up to 1.2 meters long, 8-9 mm thick.

Having described the parquet, let’s move on to different wooden floors – polished floor boards. Its appearance depends on the way the boards were dried and milled, and if done correctly, the vivid texture of the wood will be preserved and the boards can be varnished. If the boards are crooked, not even, then they need to be filled and painted. The boards should be 32-40 mm thick, and the distance between the supporting beams is 70-90 cm. It’s fairly easy to repair polished plank flooring. Over time the support beams can loosen and fix that the boards are removed, the beams are reinforced, the same boards are laid tightly (with the addition of 1 or 2 boards per room). After such an arrangement, the floors will be in good condition for another 15-20 years.