From beamed cottages in the village to period houses under the South Downs escarpment — sympathetic restoration of tired oak boards, walnut staining and hand-finished hard-wax oils, by a family team half an hour up the road in Bognor Regis.
30 minutes from our Bognor Regis workshop · Covering BN18
Slindon sits up under the South Downs, half an hour from our Bognor Regis workshop — a downland village of flint cottages, beamed period houses and estate properties, most of it in the care of the National Trust and much of it a good deal older than anything down on the coast. It's the kind of place where the floors are worth saving rather than swapping out, and that's exactly the work we're brought in for here.
The typical Slindon job for us is restoration: worn solid oak boards, often decades under carpet or a failed old varnish, taken right back to bare timber and brought back to life. We'll sand the floor flat, colour it, and finish it by hand — the sort of careful, room-by-room work a period cottage floor needs rather than a quick screen-and-recoat.
Slindon's setting means most of what we touch has age and character to it. We treat it accordingly: period-appropriate stains and oils, a subfloor survey before we quote, and a finish chosen to suit the room rather than a one-size lacquer.
Restoration is the heart of what we do in Slindon. On the last village job we took a pair of tired solid oak floors — a beamed living room with an inglenook fireplace and a fitted library — right back to bare timber, sanding out decades of wear before a single drop of colour went down. Only once the boards were flat and clean did we stain them a deep walnut and seal the lot in a matt hard-wax oil, a finish that soaks into the grain rather than sitting on top of it, so the floor still looks and feels like wood and can be patched and re-oiled in years to come without a full re-sand.
Slindon is downland and largely a period, estate village, so we work sympathetically to the age of each property. Where a floor sits in an older or protected building we're happy to liaise with the conservation officer and put a written methodology statement in front of them before anything starts — we'd rather scope it properly than guess. And because these homes hold damp differently to a modern build, we survey the subfloor for moisture before we quote.
One recent Slindon restoration, room by room — a beamed cottage where we took two worn solid oak floors back to bare timber, stained them a rich walnut and hand-finished them in a matt hard-wax oil. The kind of careful, period-sympathetic work we bring to the village.
The finished study from a Slindon cottage restoration — worn solid oak wide boards sanded back to bare timber, stained a warm walnut and sealed in a matt hard-wax oil, running the length of a room lined with fitted bookcases. The grain reads deep and even again, and the low-sheen finish keeps it looking like the real, solid timber it is.
The same Slindon job mid-restoration — the living-room floor of worn solid oak being sanded back, board by board, to strip decades of wear and old finish before any colour goes down. Getting the timber flat and clean at this stage is what lets the walnut stain sit evenly across the whole floor.
The living-room floor sanded through to bare, natural oak — pale, clean and flat, with the chimney breast sheeted off for dust while we work. This is the point a restoration turns: the old floor is gone and the bare timber is ready to take colour and a hand-applied finish.
The fitted study part-way through — the same worn solid oak being sanded back, with the bookcases sheeted in plastic to keep the dust off the joinery. You can see the old finish coming away in front of the sander and the fresher timber opening up behind it, the point where a tired library floor starts turning back into oak.
The library in the same cottage, sanded back before staining — bare solid oak boards with the fitted bookcases sheeted in plastic to keep the dust off. A tidy, careful job on a period floor: contain the mess, protect the joinery, get the timber right before the colour goes anywhere near it.
From worn oak boards in a beamed village cottage to period floors under the downs, we sand, stain and hand-finish tired timber back to life across Slindon and BN18 — and lay new hardwood where a floor is past saving.
Sanding, gap-filling, hand-finishing — tired boards brought back without losing the character.
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Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian houses — pitch pine, baltic deal, oak, sympathetic finishes.
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Solid oak, walnut, ash and maple boards — character grades and feature widths.
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Country estate programmes phased around residence — restoration and new install under one spec.
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Real-wood top layers on stable cores — engineered for UFH and open-plan rooms.
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Herringbone, chevron and Versailles panels — modern installs and period restoration.
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Foyers, offices, retail and hospitality — traditional methods, delivered on schedule.
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Overnight and weekend phasing — slip-rated matt finishes and food-safe sealers.
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Reclaimed boards and beer-tolerant finishes for country pubs, coaching inns and gastropubs.
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Multi-room timber phased around occupancy — batch-matched corridor-to-bedroom, acoustic underlay.
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Grade I, II* and II floors — sympathetic species, reversible methods advised where a listing demands.
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Engineered oak properly specced for wet and electric UFH — written commissioning log on handover.
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French oak, English elm, antique pitch pine — sourced with provenance, laid with respect to age.
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European white oak in 180mm–300mm+ planks, random lengths to 2.5m, hand-finished on site.
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Barn weddings, country-house venues and marquee dance floors — Bona commercial-wear lacquer, seasonal install windows.
Read moreOur work in Slindon is anchored by the BN18 postcode — Beamed period cottages and flint houses in the village all sit squarely inside it. Around 30 minutes up from the Bognor Regis workshop — same craftsman every visit, flat-rate quotes by the job not the mile.
Across BN18 the Slindon brief stays the same: Darren surveys on-site, sample boards stay with you for a fortnight under your own lighting, and the install runs in a single solid stretch rather than back-and-forth day trips. It matters in places like Worn solid oak boards restored, stained and hand-oiled where the subfloors and the building fabric earn a slower pass. Family team since 1997, working across West Sussex from the same coastal base. Around 0.6k residents in the town centre, and we’ve quoted on hundreds of the homes within walking distance of it.
“Not only did Forrestal Flooring restore our floors, they turned out better than they were originally. Fantastic job and great service.”
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Every wood flooring pattern, character finish and construction Darren installs — solid hardwood, engineered oak, herringbone and parquet — laid out edge-to-edge so you can see real grain, real colour, real texture.
Darren will visit, measure up and walk you through species, finishes and lead times. No pressure, no hard sell — just specialist advice.
Forrestal Flooring is the trusted flooring partner to award-winning interior design studio LEIVARS. The accolades below were won by LEIVARS for their interior schemes — we're proud to have supplied and fitted the floors behind many of them.
