Parquet and wooden floors in Nairobi

Parquet has come back strongly in Nairobi, partly on appearance and partly because a good timber floor outlives several generations of tiles. wooden floor measures 590 searches a month here and parquet flooring 320, with most of it design and price intent.

What it costs

Parquet supplied and laid runs about KES 90,000 to 150,000 for 60 square metres. Market range reviewed September 2026, not a quotation, and it moves with the species and the pattern: a herringbone or basket weave costs materially more to lay than a straight block because of the setting out and the waste.

Solid, engineered or parquet

Parquet is small blocks or strips laid in a pattern, traditionally in a mastic bed on screed. It is the most repairable floor there is, because a damaged block can be lifted and replaced, and it can be sanded many times over its life. It is also the most sensitive to a damp substrate.

Solid timber boards are a single piece through the thickness. They can be sanded repeatedly, they move seasonally across their width, and they need an expansion gap at every perimeter which the skirting then covers. A solid floor fitted tight to the walls will lift.

Engineered boards are a timber wear layer on a plywood core, so they move far less than solid. That makes them the safer choice over an uncertain substrate or with underfloor heating. The limit is the wear layer: you can sand an engineered floor two or three times, not ten.

The substrate decides everything

Almost every timber floor failure we are called to is a substrate failure, not a flooring failure, and it is worth being blunt about.

Moisture. A screed that is not dry will push moisture up into the timber, and the floor cups, lifts or opens gaps. New screed needs weeks rather than days, and longer in the rains. Laying over a slab on ground with no damp-proof membrane will fail regardless of the timber. This is the single commonest cause, and it is entirely preventable by testing rather than guessing.

Flatness. Timber telegraphs the surface beneath it. A hollow shows as a springy patch and a high spot shows as wear in the finish within a year.

So we check the substrate before quoting the floor, and where it needs work we say so. It is a more expensive answer than the one people want and it is cheaper than laying a floor twice.

Species

Mvule and mahogany are the traditional Kenyan parquet timbers and both are excellent. Cypress and podo are softer and dent, which is fine in a bedroom and poor in a hallway. Where a floor is being extended or patched into existing parquet, matching species and colour is the hard part, and a genuine match is sometimes impossible on an old floor that has ambered with age. We will say that rather than promise an invisible repair.

Wet rooms and kitchens

Timber in a bathroom is a bad idea whatever the finish, and we will talk you out of it. In a kitchen it is workable with a properly sealed floor and a realistic expectation about the area in front of the sink, which is where every timber kitchen floor shows its age first.

Sanding and refinishing an existing floor is separate work and often the better buy: see floor sanding and finishing.