Herringbone & parquet floors on Staten Island

Working on Staten Island

Pattern floors on Staten Island are house projects, often part of a larger renovation. Driveway access makes staging a long herringbone job simpler. Calls for pattern and parquet work come from St. George, Tottenville, Great Kills, New Dorp and Midland Beach. Our Staten Island flooring page covers what else we do on Staten Island besides pattern and parquet work.

Tell us early if you want new baseboards, shoe molding or quarter round, so the trim is planned with the parquet instead of added afterward.

Herringbone and parquet in Staten Island houses

The wide living rooms, entries and halls of Staten Island colonials suit herringbone and chevron well. An entry with a staircase is a natural place for a border that frames the pattern and leads the eye up the stairs. Some older houses also have parquet in a dining room or den that can be refinished if the blocks have wood left to sand.

We look at room size and light before recommending a board size and direction.

Pattern options

Subfloor and acclimation

A pattern floor needs a flat, true subfloor, so dips and humps are corrected first. Boards acclimate in the house before layout. Over a finished lower level on concrete, engineered pattern boards are an option where solid wood would move too much. The starting line is set carefully, because a small error at the start grows across a large room.

Timing and finish

Herringbone and chevron take roughly twice the labor of a straight install, and borders and stairs add more. Unfinished floors are stained on site if you choose, and test spots show how a color changes the pattern. Lighter colors show the zig-zag; darker colors make it read more uniform. See our main herringbone, parquet and stairs page and hardwood installation on Staten Island.

Mixing pattern and plain floors in one house

Few Staten Island houses need herringbone everywhere. A common approach is a pattern floor in the entry, living room or dining room, with straight boards in bedrooms and upstairs halls. The transition between them matters: a border or a change at a doorway can make the switch look deliberate. Board species and stain are chosen so the pattern and the straight floors read as one house even though the layout changes. If existing straight floors will stay, we match the new pattern boards to them and refinish everything together where possible so the color is even. We lay out these options on the visit with drawings or samples so you can see where the pattern starts and stops before any wood is ordered.

Photos from our work

No Staten Island pattern-floor job is posted yet, so these gallery examples are captioned by type of work only. Full gallery →

What affects the cost

How many rooms you want patterned, which pattern and species you pick and how the edges are finished shape a parquet install most. Extra steps like stairs, thresholds or repairs underneath are added only where they apply. You can get an instant preliminary estimate before we visit.