Joyners Oak – Page 2 – Homes & Gardens UK

Mar, 2026

Flooring That Keep It’s Looks Whatever Happens

It can be very difficult to know what to do when choosing new flooring for a family home. In the sitting and living areas, it is so lovely to have that warmth provided by a luscious wool carpet – in the deep mid winter, it does make you feel that bit more cosy. In the 1960s and 70s, the advent of central heating in modern homes seemed to coincide with the move away from wooden floors and large rugs to fully fitted carpets. Our own family moved into a brand new house in the late 60s and we enjoyed the novelty of having wall to wall carpet – not wool though, that was very much out of the budget. Ours was a modern made made nylon mix, from memory. I do recall the odd crackle when anyone moved too quickly over the sitting room one in particular. Dad used to say it was a build up of friction and electricity. We just accepted it and made sure we didn’t do anything too fast – it seemed quite a common thing to occur so we never questioned it. Fitted carpet was so popular and cheap compared to wooden flooring, which would have been in the form of parquet squares or tiles. We even had fitted carpet in the family bathroom – that seems unbelievably crass nowadays and definitely a hygiene risk.

The kitchen in that house was tiny – it seems unbelievable now to think back that housewives accepted these ghastly little sculleries with no fitments – just the sink unit with shelves underneath. When we look at the amazing features that family kitchens have become these days. Definitely no carpets! Most kitchens are the social hub of the family space now, so practical flooring is more important than ever. It has to be safe, no possibility of slipping. It also has to offer beauty that complements the cabinets and overall kitchen features. One thing my own kitchen has which at the time we moved in did not seem problematic, but now that there are aged, less nimble hands doing the housework, the very hard ceramic flooring is completely unforgiving when a favourite bone china mug slips from the grasp! For some reason they fare slightly better when bouncing off the wooden floor in the L shaped sitting area. But the ceramic floor is so much easier to keep clean and is much more water tolerant, but the wooden floor has the beauty and reflects the sun in that special natural way.

Photo by Thanos Pal.

Feb, 2026

Looking After The Wood Whilst We Still Can

There will always be problem areas in a house. Once that new bloom has worn off, there are going to be some parts of a house that get more wear and tear than others. When this house was being built, the developer’s sales agent was tasked with getting buyers to splash out for ever more incentives – such as offering to upgrade on carpets and wardrobe doors etc. The idea waas to catch the buyer who thought they would not bother with buying through the developer, thinking it would be cheaper to go to a carpet emporium. But the incentive offers were always too good to be true. For the carpeting, the offer was if the buyer agreed to pay for the entry level 30 ounce per square ft and chose the same colour throughout the house, the developer would offer the top upgrade of 50 ounce per square ft plus the top quality underlay. This was in fact a fantastic deal and we gladly took them up on that. The result was the most gorgeous quality, dense Honey coloured carpet was laid throughout. From memory we had to contribute a miniscule amount towards the services of the professional carpet layer. He laid carpet in every wardrobe footwell as well as cut small samples for us to use when matching for curtains and soft furnishings. He also left lots of offcuts for us to use as infills later on as necessary.

This was so wonderful when we finally moved in. The goreous colour and soft but thick feel of the carpet was easily as exciting as us moving in at all. The only problem with this was the master of the house deciding it was ok to traipse in from the cold garage, into the lush Honey carpeted hallway. After a very short period, the immaculate hallway began to lose it’s looks. Oily patches and footprints began to spring up and before we knew it, the hallway was completely wrecked.

Getting this rectified was a no go. We hired a professional carpet cleaning company. They did their best but it was no good. Up came that hallway carpet with the garden room that lay beyond. These were replaced by smart thick wooden flooring, in the most attractive ‘sunny’ shade. I have been able to mop with damp mop and a bucket of warm to hot water. After so many more years of very hard wear, lots of mopping with a damp mop – albeit proper wooden floor cleaner – the once gorgeous golden coloured lathes are scratched and worn away. Time for another make over by a professional who will sand down my worn down floor and bring it back up like new. How absolutely fab!

Jan, 2026

How Replacing Old Parquet Flooring With New Oak Flooring Was A Game Changer

A family member has lived in a converted chapel building for several years now. When purchasing it we were treated to endless photographs of the floors, the walls, the ceiling . . . . and the windows. The chapel appealed to them because of the very beautiful old oak beams and floors throughout the original ground floor. There was an upstairs added in the 1970s which of course has modern plain floorboards the same as in a normal house. It was all going smoothy for the family, they moved in and loved every minute of living in this quirky place. As the chapel had originally had some sort of victorian fireplace and chimney that had been boarded over in the brutalist era of 1970s, the couple decided to have it checked in case it was viable to have a wood burning stove. They paid to have the fireplace checked thoughly and in went a stove at the same time as underfloor heating and aircon in the attached conservaory. Well somewhere in this operation their builder/contractor discovered a huge damp problem under most of the middle of the parquet flooring. It was so serious they had to lose all the parquet boards, have the source of the leak located and eradicated. Their builder was ecellent in his efforts to find modern day ‘parquet’ flooring. What they have is almost identical but in new modern protected oak material. The builder has made a fantastic job of laying each section absolutely perfectly; not a squiffy line or missed section and around the edge, it looks as organic as the previous flooring, no jarring ridged edges holding the new flooring to the old.

Parquet flooring is generally pretty durable but of course it is prone to scratches and dents, especially in areas designated high traffic, and care needs to be taken to protect the floor from damage. Well that is rather difficult unless you have endless resources to find appropriate rugs. A solid hardwood parquet floor has a life expectancy of around 30 – 50 years, with proper upkeep. This could be just sweeping regularly and refinishing the surface every few years which will extend the floor life quite substantially.

Nov, 2025

Telling The Wood From The Trees And What’s Between

Oak furniture is still very much a favourite amongst those who want wood itself in their homes. There is a great deal of man made product out there and a lot of it looks very good and contemporary. However, there is still a strong market for oak furniture with that wonderful deep shine that you get from years of loving polishing. The modern oak furniture is coming in from overseas so we have many oak trees still standing in this country. The oak is a very long lived tree and it’s related to beeches and chestnuts.

We have a mid sixties set of table and four chairs from a very in-vogue manufacturer and it would have been expensive when new, in relation to that, the value now is much higher second hand. The wood is elm with some beech and the table design is ultra modern and sleek compared to the current trend for seriously heavy dining tables with chunky legs. We had one which a relative begged off me as soon as I had the opportunity of taking the beautiful elm combo. In fact the new table is only about 3/4 the size of the old clumping one from 2015. But it is so elegant and refined. I never tire of looking at its sleek lines and finish. The set we have came without any sideboard but they were available at the time. Now on the national auction site, a matching era model is about £600 to£700 and thus possibly out of the average pocket.