The laying of parquet flooring on sand is not a new invention, and was already being applied in the early 1920s.

Indeed, the parquet floors of many existing dwellings from the period were laid according to this method.

They were called «overlapping» floors since they were laid on pre-existing flooring such as terracotta tiles or damaged cement tiles.

The laying of flooring on sand involved adding a thin layer of sand to create a «level».

Superimposed over this was a layer of ordinary paper, and wooden strips were placed on top of this alongside one another, joined by metal tongues inserted into special slots.

The chosen metal was iron, a material suitable for absorbing the wood’s humidity to ensure its compression and help avoid the formation of fissures in the parquet.

This laying method had no negative impacts on the wood since at that time internal heating was provided by wood-burning stoves or fireplaces, which maintained an acceptable percentage humidity level for the wood. Terracotta sand paper.