The Parquet That Stuck

About a year and a half ago, my van decided it had had enough.

I was in London, I had one last delivery to make — a small top-up order for our lovely customer Caroline in Guildford — and our blue Ford Transit Custom, affectionately known as Smurf, had just developed a rather inconvenient new feature:

It would only drive backwards.

Money was pretty tight at the time, I was two months pregnant with Aya, and I still had this bloody parquet to deliver.

Enter Martin, our neighbour.

Martin has a Ford Fiesta. I had parquet. So I asked if there was any chance he could drive me to Guildford with it.

Without a second thought, he said yes. We transferred the parquet from my backwards-only Transit into his Fiesta and off we went.

It was actually the first time I'd ever been in a car with Martin driving, and I discovered two things that day: firstly, he's a bloody good driver. Secondly, the man apparently has the entire London area stored in his head.

No sat nav. Nothing. He just... knows where he's going.

How cool is that?!

We got to Caroline's, carried the parquet in and she offered us a cup of tea — which, by the way, is always massively appreciated on a delivery. ;)

And while we were there, we got to see the floor.

Michael had fitted the parquet we'd supplied for Caroline's original order, and he'd done an absolutely cracking job. It looked beautiful.

So we stood there for a while, drinking tea, chatting and admiring it. Martin was particularly impressed with Mick's work.

Eventually we said goodbye, got back into the Fiesta and went home.

Delivery done. Parquet delivered. End of story.

Except apparently, the parquet stuck...

Fast forward about a year and a half.

I arrived back in London recently and, on my first evening there, ended up sitting with Martin and his wife Karen for about three hours, talking about everything and nothing.

And at some point Martin suddenly remembered that trip to Guildford.

More specifically, he remembered the floor.

And then proceeded to give me what can only be described as a several-minute-long speech about just how bloody good that parquet looked and what an exceptional craftsman Michael was...

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER! 😂

This wasn't his house. It wasn't his floor. He'd seen it once, entirely by accident, because his neighbour's van had broken down and he'd been kind enough to help her deliver a few extra square metres of parquet in a Ford Fiesta.

And somehow, eighteen months later, that floor was still in his head.

His conclusion was possibly my favourite part.

According to Martin, whether the customer likes the finished floor is actually secondary.

The really important thing is whether the craftsman who laid it likes it. 😂

Which is perhaps not quite how customer service is supposed to work...

But I knew exactly what he meant.

A proper craftsman has his own standards. He sees the little things most of us wouldn't notice. And when someone genuinely cares about what they do, you can see it in the finished work.

Apparently sometimes you can see it so clearly that the work sticks with a completely unrelated bloke who only came along for the ride.

So yes.

Some parquet sticks to the floor.

And some parquet just... sticks. 🌿

Love,

Mel x

woodjob uk , tales of a reclaimed life , small business , london , poland, reclaimed parquet flooring