Laying reclaimed wood block flooring

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14 Feb 2009
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Northamptonshire
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United Kingdom
Right. I am looking for any last minute advice before I start.
The floor in the sitting room of my victorian house was made of wood blocks -- not your standard ones, but blocks roughly 6 cm high (more than two inches). These blocks covered about 2/3 of the floor in the room, with one part of the room that had once been a kitchen tiled instead (all thise covered with carpet when I moved in). After binning the blocks from around the edges that had rotted through moisture penetration (did find source of damp and eliminate that), I had about enough to do half the floor. I eventually got some reclaimed blocks of the right height, enough to do most of the floor. These are a different size, but the same height, so I will use my original ones to do a three-tier edge, and the new ones in a herringbone pattern.

All the blocks have now been scraped of the bitumen. The base is concrete, in excellent condition. I have patched a few cracks. There is a small amount of the old bitumen in a few places on the floor,but worn flat and refuses to be scraped off. I think this will have to stay. I know it would be better to get it off, but it seems to be permanently bonded to the concrete now!

After extensive internet research, I've more or less decided to go with Rewmar adhesive (www.rewmar.co.uk). It looks pretty straightforward. Has anyone here used this?

I'm now trying to measure out the area properly, so that I don't get any 1/4 inch of block at the edges.

Is there anything else I should be thinking about? Eventually, it will be sanded and hard-oiled. This is 30 sq m of terrifying right right now!
 
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Wow, thanks for that -- certainly the best how-to guide I have seen to this. It's always helpful, especially, when something says "Ideally, do ABC, but if you can't, then X Y or Z can happen", instead of just "Do ABC." -- i.e. I know I should remove the bitumen from the floor, but it isn't possible to remove all of it, so it is just good to know what happens if I don't. So i just have a residue in places, no more than a 1mm ridge anywhere. And I don't plan to sand for a couple of weeks after it's gone down, so I am sure the glue will dry by then!

I spent most of yesterday trying to negotiate the eventual placement so that I don't end up with something like a half-inch of block needed at the edge, but that seems impossible. So I am starting with perfect placement at the fireplace, which is the focal point of the room, and working from there.
 

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