Parquet flooring is laid, walked on for decades, shows signs of wear – and usually ends up in a container during the next renovation. Fisch & Tisch starts exactly at this point. The family business from Asslar rescues discarded flooring and turns it into tables. What would otherwise be disposed of gets a second, longer life.
For us, this is one of the most honest forms of circularity we know. No material is newly cut, no story is covered up. The floor remains visibly what it was – and is still allowed to live on.
Craftsmanship with heritage: Furniture made from rescued parquet flooring
2022, a herringbone floor in an Art Nouveau villa near Jena: The idea of repurposing it gave rise to the workshop that bears its name today. What began as a single project has now become craftsmanship with heritage. Sports halls, historic buildings, and old residential buildings do not give up their wood, but pass it into new hands.
Fisch & Tisch understands craftsmanship not only as a technique, but as an attitude. In their own workshop, every plank is planed, sanded, and oiled until its original grain becomes visible again. Because the raw material comes from already used flooring, every piece turns out differently – grain, installation pattern, small signs of wear. No table is like another; each is unique. Rectangular, round, oval, and free-form tops can be created, depending on the raw material and your wishes.
Tables made from recycled oak parquet: three examples
As different as the results may look – the same idea is always behind them: rescued flooring becomes furniture. Three examples show the range.
The coffee table made from sports hall flooring. The top of this round coffee table is made from oak parquet rescued from an old sports hall. The special thing: The original floor markings of the hall are preserved. Where lines for playing fields once ran, colored traces now run across the tabletop – not concealed, but deliberately made part of the furniture. The top is supported by a simple metal frame. Available in three sizes (Ø 60, 70, and 80 cm), from €600. → To the coffee table made from sports hall flooring
The coffee table with a herringbone pattern. Calmer, more classic, completely without markings: Here, the rescued oak parquet is re-laid in the namesake herringbone pattern. The oiled surface emphasizes the natural grain instead of letting it disappear under varnish. On a wooden frame, the table looks warm and understated – a piece that fits into almost any room. Ø 60 cm, €600. → To the round coffee table with a herringbone pattern
The dining table on a vintage USM Haller frame. Here, rescued wood meets a reused design classic. The rectangular top is made from a checkerboard pattern of reused oak parquet and meranti and stands on a used, chrome-plated USM Haller frame. Twice circularity in one piece of furniture: the wood from an old floor, the frame from a second life. At 175 × 75 cm, it is a dining table that carries a room – a handcrafted unique piece, €2,490. → To the dining table with a checkerboard pattern
Which table for which room?
The three pieces cover two typical situations. The two round coffee tables are intended for the living room: They come without corners and therefore also fit into smaller rooms or a reading nook. The sports hall flooring table is available in three diameters, so you can adapt it to your seating group; the herringbone coffee table is the more understated counterpart with its calm appearance.
For the dining area, the rectangular dining table on the USM Haller frame is made – at 175 × 75 cm, it carries an entire room. As a rough guideline for size, 60 cm width and at least 40 cm depth per person apply. At round tables with a diameter of 90 cm, four people sit; from six people, 120 cm is recommended; from eight people, 150 cm. And because every table is created individually anyway, the size can be precisely adapted to your room on request.
How to recognize good upcycled wood
Not everywhere that says "sustainable" is real recycling involved. A few clues to recognize good furniture made from reused wood:
Solid wood instead of veneered board – solid wood can be sanded, re-oiled, and repaired for generations; a veneered chipboard cannot. Traceable origin – can it be said where the wood comes from? At Fisch & Tisch, these are sports halls, historic buildings, and Art Nouveau villas. Visible traces instead of concealed perfection – signs of wear, markings, and color differences are a sign of genuine reuse, not a flaw. And genuine craftsmanship – individually crafted, oiled instead of thickly varnished, so that the grain remains visible and the piece is repairable.
Anyone who pays attention to these points buys a piece of furniture that not only looks good today but can still be refurbished in twenty years.
Care: how an oiled tabletop stays beautiful for a long time
Most Fisch & Tisch tables have an oiled surface – and that has a major advantage over varnish: it is repairable. In everyday life, it is enough to wipe the top with a slightly damp cloth; you should avoid harsh cleaners. A top-coating oil, which can be selected when ordering, additionally prevents water stains. If individual areas become dull over time or get a scratch, the surface can simply be re-oiled – something that is not possible with varnished surfaces. This way, the table stays beautiful for years and can always be refreshed as needed.
More than furniture: tables as a meeting place
A table is the place where people come together – Fisch & Tisch thinks this idea beyond the individual order. This is also how tables and counter tops for public places are created: for the Café Pottblümchen in the Hagener Museumsquartier, for example, or as part of Fabrikat89, a curated exhibition on Cologne's Ehrenstraße. With the own format "Fisch & Tisch Dinner", the idea is consistently carried through: At changing locations, people eat at exactly the tables that were created in the workshop beforehand.
Every table begins with a conversation
Because no floor is like another, no table is off the shelf either. Shape, installation pattern, size, oil finish, and frame are individually coordinated before production begins. You can decide everything or leave individual points open – Fisch & Tisch will get in touch, clarify the details personally, and make an offer. Delivery is preferably personal and assembly on site – without drilling, without complicated assembly.
Why we work with Fisch & Tisch
It is a prime example of a world of circular raw materials. Real wood has an impressive life story – first it was parquet, now a table, and one can only speculate what future generations will once make of it. Raw materials are not perishable, they merely change their form.
This is exactly what we mean when we say: the future needs things that are allowed to stay. These tables are almost a literal translation of this sentence – material that was close to the end becomes something that lasts for years and tells where it comes from. No anonymous new wood, but a floor with a biography, repurposed by hand in Germany.
This is exactly what we curate: good design, honestly explained, made to last.