Special Producers of distressed floors

THE TREND WHICH JUST WON’T GO AWAY

STILL A BIG DEMAND FOR A WEATHERED AND NATURAL LOOK

Eric Bonneu (Di Legno - B)

‘Once upon a time …. a fairy tale based on true facts.’

For the restoration of mansions and castles, architects clamour as much as possible for the preservation of the ‘soul’ and authentic elements of properties to safeguard them. The patine of parquet cannot be equalled by new materials and gives the interior a unique aesthetic look, a rich ‘base’, and a subtle character. However, the wood is often no longer in good condition, shortcomings arise, and the technical side for refitting presents problems and is very labour-intensive.

This also happened 22 years ago when a team of architects was asked to restore a castle in all its fine detail. The architect asked the advice of the three founders of Di Legno to imitate some oak parquet which was 100 years old, including the patine parquet, so that the architect could work away its shortcomings and provide a charming and technically perfect floor. Di Legno was born … the subtle ageing and patination of oak floors in new European oak, with suitable measurement and fitting, and completely protected and low maintenance with natural oils.

During this quest, we made a second discovery. The natural process to which we subjected the oak wood created ‘natural weathering’. This yielded a very special aged look. It was that same architect who noticed this shade of grey during one of his visits to the production hall and asked us explicitly to preserve this colour and look as such. He called it a colour and finish which only nature itself could conceive and which could never come from a pot or a factory. He was absolutely right because the shade of grey and look were the result of the wood’s natural process. We didn’t conceive it, but nature did. And so, each plank is different in identity and character. We still respect that natural process and we give nature the time to do its work and produce a unique result.

Respecting what nature gives us

Research has shown that children who grow up in a city often no longer realise that milk comes from a cow. This illustration also applies partly to parquet. Do we realise, respect, and cherish sufficiently the fact that we are bringing a piece of nature into our homes when we opt for an oak floor? The structure, the grains, and the colour all trace their origins back to the existence of a tree and, thankfully, no two trees are alike. At Di Legno we try to respect fully the richness, the authenticity, and the uniqueness of the natural product and too allow it to come into its own.

Some trends come and go, whilst others stick around longer. In the case of distressed floors it is clearly the latter which applies. Artificial ageing (not only of wooden floors) has been in fashion for a few decades and still is. Moreover, we also see that distressing is being applied not only in the look of the floorboards, but also in the return of classic patterns such as herringbone and Hungarian point.

The question is: How is distressing work carried out? The answer is that there are few treatments with such a wide range of different approaches. There might be some main threads throughout the entire story, but approaches vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and sometimes acutely.

Two editions ago, we covered the mechanical options e.g. drumming, lashing, planing, sawing, etc. This time we pay more attention to the other distressing element, the use of chemical agents. These agents are used for ‘ageing’, so they are a reaction to a demand for the look of a naturally weathered floor. The idea is to imitate the specific features of an old floor as naturally as possible, especially the effect of damp upon wood to produce discolouration and traces of wear from footsteps. This is linked to a hint of woodworking techniques where the mechanical element comes to the fore.

Smoking, staining, and colour distressing

The technique which stands out the most is smoking, a technique which goes back a long way. Smoking, certainly with oak with its high tannic acid content, is caused by the creation of ammonia fumes (i.e. it has nothing to do with lighting a fire) which provoke a reaction from the tannic acid in the wood. As the fumes penetrate, they yield a somewhat darker appearance. This colouring process does not yield uniform colouring because sapwood doesn’t discolour and you can do it singly or doubly. If the wood is smoked doubly, the colour changes from light to dark brown. You also obtain a darker colour using a closely

related technique, namely that of staining (for more information about reactive stains please refer to the article about this elsewhere in this magazine).

Why ammonia fumes, you might wonder? This is no more than logical and in line with how things used to be done in the past. The living rooms of farmsteads were often located right next to the stable. If you think of animals, you think of faeces and, therefore, ammonia, which worked its way naturally into the wood.

In addition, we must cover the different method of the closely related colour distressing technique. In this case we use special pigments or colour oils, and it is striking to note how popular shades of white and grey are. This contrasts with the result of smoking where you aim for darker colours.

Patination

Another possibility is the application of patines between the primer and the top coats. These are used to apply shadow effects or shades of colour. Dry patine, which is sometimes referred to as dust patine, consists of a special colour pigment with denatured ethanol as solvent system. Due to the rapid drying, the patine hardly sticks to the substrate. The finish coat dissolves the patine again so that there is no good adhesion between the coats. The patine is either lightly sprayed or applied with a patine spray. The excess is sandpapered away later with a scouring pad, for instance.

Environmental considerations

Anyone who talks about the use of chemical agents obviously has to think at once of the potentially harmful effects to the environment, the worker, and the user. For one company from Limburg in Belgium, that awareness was a central consideration from the very start over 20 years ago and nowadays few people would want to make any concessions. In the meantime, other manufacturers have also got the message, not least due to the increasingly strict environmental regulations.

Two other specialists have their say:

Houtbedrijf Kerkhofs

Houtbedrijf Kerkhofs offers distressed designs in traditional parquet 6mm, 9mm Burgundy, 15 and 20mm Solid wood, and 15/16 and 20mm engineered. Houtbedrijf Kerkhofs still sells lots of distressed floors. At all events, these floors are fairly popular, but it is questionable as to whether or not we can talk of a trend. The most Kwaliteitsparket VOOR & DOOR PROFESSIONALS popular method of distressing is by beating. Something also very popular at the moment are manually distressed sides with no distressing on the flat surface. They have their own opinion on the brushed design: ‘In my opinion, this is a completely different look. What I personally find more attractive is to use planed planks with a distressed floor. When you start brushing, the distressing doesn’t stand out on the flat part. You probably notice it only on the sides because they are more broken/ deformed.’ At Houtbedrijf Kerkhofs, too, most of what is used for “Alle producten voor de perfecte vloer.” distressing is oak. However, it is also possible to apply it to many other Tel: +32(0)11 63 64 00 - www.parketkerkhofs.be types of wood. Houtbedrijf Kerkhofs delivers what the end client wants. Q-FLOOR - Antiqua

With a distressed floor from our Antiqua collection, we always start with a freshly produced plank for both solid wood and engineered parquet. Our ‘manually’ distressed oak floors get their authentic and weathered look through the use of various techniques, from manually planed to manually scraped, with or without light or heavy brushing. The options also include manual surface distressing, sawn effect, or distressed or manually scraped edges. Smoking the wood or treating it with reactive stains gives planks an extra dimension to provide a warm and intense colour. This means there is a choice from a wide range of colours. It is essential that the wood contains enough tannic acid, so the region of the wood’s origin largely determines the beauty of the end result. The combinations of these finishes and techniques are endless, so we always design Q-floor to meet the customer’s wishes. Herringbone and Hungarian point are still uniquely popular and, together with the distressed and weathered look, they really are an eye-catcher in the interior.