Ibis Hotel Restaurant Refit in Luxury Vinyl Tile

Project overview

The brief

The Ibis hotel at West Brompton was refurbishing its ground-floor restaurant and breakfast lounge as part of a wider brand refresh, and needed a hard-wearing, design-led floor across the public-facing dining area, bar, buffet servery and back-of-house. The brief was a warm, wood-look LVT laid in a feature parquet pattern that would carry the new interior scheme without looking like a back-of-house spec.

The challenge

600 sqm of existing flooring across multiple substrates — old screeded sections, patched concrete around the bar plinth, and a raised platform at the entrance — had to be lifted, prepped and re-laid while the hotel stayed open. Curved bulkheads and a sweeping border line between the dining floor and the dark perimeter walkway meant the parquet had to be templated rather than cut on the fly.

Our approach

• Strip-out and substrate prep — Existing floor coverings lifted, residual adhesive mechanically scraped, and the slab tested for moisture across all zones. Two coats of epoxy moisture suppressant applied where readings were borderline, followed by a 4–6 mm fibre-reinforced latex self-levelling compound to take out the patches and historic chases.
• Phasing around hotel operations — The 600 sqm scheme was split into five working zones to keep the breakfast service running. Noisy prep was front-loaded into the first hour of each day and the back-of-house area completed first so the kitchen team could resume normal flow before the dining floor came online.
• Setting out the parquet and border — We pulled a centreline through the buffet servery so the parquet pattern reads symmetrically as guests enter. The curved border between the lighter LVT parquet and the darker perimeter plank was set out from a templated radius, cut on the bench and dry-laid before bonding so the join sweeps cleanly across the room.
• Install and finish — All tiles fully bonded with the manufacturer's specified pressure-sensitive adhesive, hand-rolled in both directions and cross-rolled with a 50 kg roller across the open spans. Stainless thresholds at the kitchen entry, scribed cleanly to the brass-edged bar plinth, and a final clean and matt-buff before handover.

The result

600 sqm of luxury vinyl tile parquet fitted on programme across a phased three-week installation, with the hotel restaurant remaining operational throughout. The contrast between the warm wood-look parquet and the darker perimeter plank gives the space a clear circulation cue, and the floor now sets the tone for the rest of the refurbished interior.