Jason Vivash of J.L. Vivash Custom Wood Floors has recently completed an impressive dining room and kitchen floor project in his 1860s Gothic Victorian home in Ontario, Canada. This renovation combines traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, reflecting Vivash’s dedication to his trade and his careful approach to preserving the character of a historic residence. The project showcases both Vivash’s woodworking expertise and his ability to honor architectural heritage while implementing modern flooring techniques.
“This floor was a long time coming,” recalls Vivash. “I hand-cut 400 square feet of patterned flooring three years ago, but the project got sidetracked until I felt the urgency to return to it.”
The inlay design was inspired by 18th-century French marquetry furniture, characterized by curved darker borders, light flourishes, and exotic flower inlays. Vivash’s Gothic Victorian home, with its dark mansard-style slate roof, white corbels, and pillars, was the perfect backdrop for this intricate design.
“The idea was to mirror a detailed plaster medallion I’d built on the ceiling years ago, creating a cohesive and ornate look throughout the space,” he says.
For this project, Vivash combined traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, using both a CNC bed and a 150W laser cutter. The floor design centered around a 5’ x 9’ elaborate medallion set inside a hand-cut basket weave pattern.
Several key design elements were incorporated into the floor. The basket weave field featured 4” quartered white oak pickets flanked by 1/2” cherry strips, while the 8″ blocks were book-matched quarter-sawn walnut. The inlay boasted a CNC-cut center oval starburst made from ambrosia maple with walnut shadow lines and scalloped ends. Curved outer walnut bands were adorned with laser-cut holly flourishes, wenge shadow lines, leopardwood flowers, and yellow heart stamen.
The four corners between the border and oval center featured intricate laser-cut curved basket weave designs made from ambrosia maple with 11/2” x 21/2” leopardwood curved diamond inserts. Adding to the complexity, Vivash included 400 pieces of 3/16” wide yellow heart dowel throughout this section.
The final touch was four intricate fleur-de-lis inlays made from holly, wenge, yellow heart, and bloodwood – a motif Vivash previously had used in his home’s entryway medallion and front door stained glass window transom.
“To join these large elements together seamlessly, I used 1/2” wide wenge feature strips to separate the key design elements,” explains Vivash. “This method required careful planning and precision cutting to ensure everything fit perfectly.”
Subfloor preparation was critical for this project. The uneven subfloor in the 150-year-old house posed a significant challenge, requiring careful planning to achieve the desired precision. Vivash found his home’s pine tongue-and-groove subfloor had numerous low areas and rolls across the room’s 16’ width and 22’ length. He decided to aim for a degree of rolling flatness, using an 8’ straight edge and varying thicknesses of plywood to build up the subfloor before gluing and screwing 1/2” birch plywood sheets overtop.
“The subfloor needed a lot of work to get it ready for the basketweave parquet and inlays, which were all 8.5 mm square edge solid direct glue down,” says Vivash.
With the subfloor issues addressed, Vivash centered the patterned floor on the dining room table, ensuring perfect symmetry of cut pieces on either side of the inlay. To lay the medallion, he divided the design into four sections, using a large format printer to create a map for assembly. He then glued the medallion pieces in place, starting with the center oval, followed by the four corners and the curved border, always using large router templates for reference.
Once the medallion was dry, Vivash used a Festool plunge router to cut out the wenge inlays. The final task was inlaying the four fleur-de-lis and four diamonds, adding a decorative touch, and filling the joint seams on the curved basket weave details.
“With the floor being 8.5mm solid, I was able to give it a good sanding to flatten everything out,” he explains. “We sanded up to 180 grit, then buffed in Odie’s Oil for a silky smooth finish.”
Vivash acknowledges that working with 8mm square edge solid wood requires careful consideration of wood movement, especially in Ontario’s fluctuating climate. Not shockingly, after completing the floor, he noticed some minor movement and heard a few noisy pops. He was able to address these issues effectively using epoxy injections.
“In the end, it was a pleasure creating this floor for our family home, and I look forward to showcasing this level of work to future clients,” says Vivash. “If you want to sell it, you have to show it.”
