There is carpet over the whole house. Is there parquet underneath?

In a Karen house of that age, very often. We lift a corner in an inconspicuous place and look before you commit to anything. If there is sound parquet under there, sanding it back at KES 400–700 per m² beats every alternative on both cost and result.

Why flake epoxy rather than plain colour in the garage?

Dust. A plain grey garage floor at the end of a murram driveway shows every footprint and tyre mark. Flake breaks the surface up visually and hides it, which in Karen matters more than the small price difference.

Plumber in Karen, Nairobi

We cover Karen including Bogani, Hardy, Karen Centre, Miotoni, Marula Lane, Kerarapon, Karen Plains, Mokoyeti, Windridge, Kuwinda. Off Ngong Road and Langata Road via Karen roundabout. Grinding and sanding are wet or dusty processes, so we schedule them before other finishing trades.

What is different about plumbing in Karen

Karen's older stone houses have original parquet under decades of carpet, and sanding it back produces a better floor than anything we could lay over it.
Half-acre Karen plots have long unsurfaced murram driveways, so garage epoxy here is specified with a flake finish that hides tracked-in dust.
Large Karen reception rooms want a terrazzo divider strip layout set out as a pattern rather than a plain grid, because the floor is the biggest surface in the room.

Flooring in Karen

Karen gives us the largest floors we lay and, more often, the best floors we restore. The older houses here were built with materials that are no longer standard, and a good deal of our work is uncovering what is already there.

Look before you cover

Carpet was fitted throughout many Karen houses in the 1980s and 90s, and underneath a great deal of it is original parquet or timber in condition that would cost a fortune to buy today.

Before quoting a new floor for a Karen house we lift a corner. It takes ten minutes. If there is sound parquet under the carpet, sanding and refinishing it is both cheaper and better than anything we could lay on top, and we will tell you so.

Garages and murram

Karen driveways are long and mostly unsurfaced. That means grit and fine red dust tracked into every garage, every day.

A plain solid-colour epoxy shows all of it. A flake finish, coloured chips broadcast into the wet coat, breaks the surface visually and hides dust and tyre marks almost completely. The cost difference is small and it is the single most useful specification decision on a Karen garage.

Terrazzo at scale

Reception rooms here are large enough that the divider strip layout stops being a technical requirement and becomes the design. On a floor of that size a plain grid looks industrial; a border with a considered internal pattern reads as architecture.

We set the strips out on the slab and walk you through it before any material is mixed, because it is permanent and it is visible.

What we are usually called out for in Karen

Floor sanding and varnishing Sanding back and refinishing timber and parquet, usually far cheaper than replacing. Epoxy floor installation Epoxy laid on a slab that has been tested and prepared, the step that decides whether it lasts. Terrazzo installation In-situ terrazzo laid, ground and polished, with divider strips set where the floor actually needs them. Floor repair Diagnosing why a floor failed before repairing it, so the repair is not the first of several.

Landmarks we work around here: Karen Shopping Centre, Karen Country Club, Ngong Racecourse, Karen Blixen Museum. See every floor type priced.