Versailles parquet flooring is a wood floor laid in square panels, each made of diagonal and straight slats interwoven inside a square border. The pattern dates to 1684, when it replaced marble floors at the Palace of Versailles; the marble needed constant washing, which rotted the wood joists beneath it. Versailles panels are made two ways: in a factory, often as prefinished engineered panels, or by hand, piece by piece in a shop. This article covers handmade panels, the kind Classy Flooring ATL builds in its shop, which are installed unfinished, then sanded and finished on site.
Handmade and Factory-Made Versailles Panels
The original Versailles panels were built entirely by hand: solid oak, joined with mortises, tenons, and dowels, assembled without glue, and finished with wax. Many panels sold today are factory-made in a few stock sizes, often as engineered panels with a hardwood wear layer on a plywood base, prefinished at the factory.
A handmade panel is cut and assembled one panel at a time in a shop. Because each panel is built to order, its size and wood species can be set for the room. The panels arrive unfinished, so after installation the floor is sanded flat and finished as one surface.
How a Versailles Panel Is Built
Each panel is a square: a perimeter frame surrounding slats that cross on the diagonal and interlock at the center. In a handmade panel, every slat is cut to the same length and angle as its match in the next panel, so the pattern lines up across the whole floor. Jigs and sleds hold each cut to a repeatable dimension, which is how a shop keeps every panel in a floor identical.
Our shop cuts pattern pieces the same way for other floors. For the Woodstock estate, 9½-inch European white oak planks were milled into 4½-inch herringbone pieces, 25 inches long in one house and 19 inches in the other, with the tongue, groove, and bevel re-cut on every piece.
Panel sizes vary. Historic panels ran from about 800 mm to 1,150 mm square (31 to 45 inches), and European panels today are commonly about 100 cm, roughly 39 inches. Panels can be laid square to the walls or on a 45-degree diagonal. A diagonal layout suits irregular rooms and produces more waste from cut panels. Either way, NWFA’s parquet guidelines lay the pattern out from the center of the room, so it is balanced around the room’s focal points.
What Is the Lifespan of Parquet Flooring?
A parquet floor lasts as long as its wood can be sanded and refinished. The thicker the sandable wood layer, the more times the floor can be sanded; an engineered panel’s limit is the thickness of its wear layer, and NWFA’s sanding guidelines generally stop sanding once less than 3/32 inch remains. The finish wears long before the wood does. When the floor loses its luster, NWFA’s care guidelines call for a maintenance coat: the existing finish is cleaned and abraded, and a fresh coat goes on over it, with no sanding into the wood. A full sanding is kept for dents, wear patterns, permanent cupping, or a change of color.
The same holds for any solid wood floor. In Hoschton, Classy Flooring ATL installed a white oak floor about 20 years ago. In 2025, we sanded and refinished it for the same family, in two coats of Bona NordicSeal and two of Bona Traffic HD.
What Are the Downsides of Parquet Flooring?
Moisture. A parquet floor has many more joints than a plank floor, and each joint is a place where water can reach the wood. NWFA’s care guidelines call for wiping spills up immediately and keeping indoor humidity between 30 and 50%, with a dehumidifier in humid months, which in Atlanta means the summer. In bathrooms, water decides where parquet fits. We install parquet in powder rooms, which have a sink but no tub or shower; in a full bathroom, the shower or tub puts water on the floor every day. Design coverage of 2026 flooring trends names parquet and herringbone for small rooms, powder rooms included, where a patterned floor becomes the room’s focal point.
Sanding. The grain changes direction from piece to piece, so a sander run in one direction cuts some pieces along the grain and others across it. NWFA’s parquet method makes the first cut at 45 degrees to the grain with the finest grit that flattens the floor, and the second at the opposite 45 degrees with the next grit, which keeps the softer pieces from dishing out. Later cuts stay at an angle, and the floor is finished with a hard plate, multi-disc, or oscillating sander. NWFA classes herringbone as a parquet pattern, and on the herringbone floor in a Buckhead high-rise, the FG Floortec Discus planetary sander refined the final grits, 100 and 120, because its multi-directional motion cuts evenly across grain running two ways.
Repairs. A replacement piece has to match the original’s species, size, and grain direction so the pattern still reads correctly, and NWFA calls for replacement wood within 2% moisture content of the existing floor so the two move together. We hold plank repairs to the same standard: at a former kitchen cabinet run in Buckhead, new white oak was laced into the existing floor after its moisture was confirmed before installation.
Can You Mop a Parquet Floor?
Yes, with a damp mop. NWFA’s 2025 guidelines recommend damp mopping weekly with a mop that is only slightly moistened and well wrung out, or a quality spray mop with absorbent pads. Day to day, a dust mop or a vacuum on its hard-floor setting, with the beater bar off, keeps grit off the finish. What NWFA rules out is a traditional mop and bucket, which can put too much water on the floor, and steam cleaners. On a site-finished parquet floor, the cleaner is the one the finish manufacturer recommends. With so many joints in a parquet floor, the less water left on the surface, the less reaches the wood. At the final walkthrough, Claudiu goes through the care routine for the finish on your floor.
Parquet Work at Classy Flooring ATL
Classy Flooring ATL is led by Claudiu Toma, an NWFA Certified Installer, NWFA Certified Sand & Finisher and NWFA Certified Sales Advisor, who completed NWFA Precision Patterns: Parquet Flooring and NWFA Precision Patterns: Medallions. Every project is carried out by our in-house crew.
The NWFA Precision Patterns: Parquet Flooring course covers traditional parquet panel construction, including Versailles-style pattern work, and building the custom sleds and jigs used to cut parquet pieces to repeatable dimensions.
Classy Flooring ATL builds Versailles parquet panels by hand in its shop and installs them in clients’ homes across the Atlanta area as part of its custom pattern installations. See our custom hardwood pattern installation page, read What Is a Floor Medallion?, or contact us to discuss a parquet floor.