Parquet Flooring from the Baroque Period
What exactly is Parquet flooring and what is it that makes it?
Parquet is a flooring of inlaid woodwork, or pieces of wood fitted together to form a pattern. It could also be the main floor of a theater, especially from the orchestra pit to the part of the theater beneath the balcony and behind the parquet, usually called the orchestra.
Oak, cherry, mahogany, beech and pecan are the most used hardwoods for making parquet floors. To create a pattern for making parquet floors, different colors, types or species of wood are cut, stained and fitted. Parquet flooring can have a very sophisticated look and is particularly elegant and stylish alternative as a sub-style of wood flooring. They also give simple and rustic look. Parquet flooring could come as wood borders, motifs and logos in a combination of wood species to compliment your wood floor using state of the art laser cutting machinery. Compared to other floorings, parquet flooring is much more resistant to dents and scratches and is hardwearing enough to withstand heavy traffic especially in public buildings. It gives emphasis on high dimensional stability.
Parquet flooring is maintained with routine vacuuming and sweeping and periodic washing. Cleaning and repair would never be a problem. There are certain chemicals (wood-floor renewal) that restore the shiny effect of wood floors making them look like new. Parquet floors aesthetically compliments many other aspects of home decors. Very hard woods are extremely durable and therefore are best suited for children’s areas and kitchens while more subtle hard wood is better for living areas where hard wearing wood is not as important as the finish. And what made this all possible? – Parquet’s elegant yet charming tradition.
Parquet flooring came about during the Baroque Period. They are first found in Royal homes and palaces. Toward the end of the Middle Age the habit of matching different wood types to form a particular pattern was already popular. Well-kept examples of the oldest indoor wood floors can be seen in Scandinavia and England. Their roots span from the Gothic age through the 15th century. The inlay technique was developed later with the use of valuable and rare woods, but it became popular only in the second half of the seventeenth century.
The wide varieties of patterns of rhombs, Monaco, Monticello are mimicries of patterns from the Baroque floors. The most famous parquet pattern is the Parquet de Versailles because it can provide the grandest looking floors. Herring bone-style, ship’s flooring-style, and laid floorboards are among the other patterns of parquet floors. Though solid hardwood flooring or parquet flooring is a historical favorite, in recent years laminated wood flooring has soared in popularity.