Floorboards or new wooden flooring of some sort....?

puddy

Not ready to do floors yet, BUT, cat is very ill and is now weeing on the horrible carpet we have on the hall, stairs and landing. Bit by bit I am cutting bits of the carpet out to remove the odour du chat. OH is going mental at me doing this even though he wants the carpt removed eventually and hates the carpet as much as me (I suppose he doesnt like big holes in the carpet!!!)

So anyway, my plan was to eventually get the floors sanded, varnished, fixed etc. Black painted in the hall, white on the stairs and landing.

Now, thinking about the realities of this, various sanding treatments, then restored, then varished, painted whatever (wouldnt be us doing it either, would be someone who knows how to do these things),,,,,, is it worth it, or would you just get some wood flooring to go down?

and if you bought wood flooring to go down, does that go on top of the floorboards we have, or do they come up? Do you use underlay on top of the floorboards and under the new wood floor???

whats easiest and less hassle?? the floorboards would cost less im assuming as we wouldnt be paying for laying....

gmgmgm

Cutting bits out of the carpet!

Hope you've bought some washable rugs to cover the holes and good luck sorting this out.

puddy

nope, the holes are just sat there, proud as punch. its clear from the floorboards underneath that they have had varnished floors in the past, but they look in poor condition. i cant let the carpet sit there, its soaking through to the wood and i dont want to damage it. plus theres no underlay under the carpet, the previous owner has used cardboard boxes laid flat!!!

mrtobs

I would wait until you have the carpet completely up before you decide - see what sort of overall condition the floorboards are like. We had the floorboards in a large room repaired (minor repairs)/sanded/varnished and it cost us roughly the same as a cheap carpet would have. We thought it was well worth it as it looked really good afterwards, but it is very messy and very noisy! You can hire machines & do it yourself (which would be cheaper), but if we decided to do it again in a future house, I'd definitely get someone in to do it. One thing with the stairs though, you might find it quite noisy without a carpet - you could always have a runner on them with the wood showing either side??

ormus

beware that its a messy job and fairly expensive if you dont DIY.
id put laminate down instead. yes you leave the floorboards intact. and use an underlay. usually the green fibre board type.
the cheap laminate from BQ/wickes etc is cheaper than carpets.
you can do a room for 100 quid ish.

puddy

re the stairs, no im having a runner

re the laminate, no i wanted wood really. some of the rooms have laminate already and i'l keep it cos we cant do all the rooms but i dont really like it.

just heard from vet that cat is v ill, have been in tears about it, i dont really care about her weeing everywhere, i just want her to get better

andrew-b

Sorry to hear about your cat I wouldn't pull anymore carpet up as although it might be smelly at least it may be protecting the floorboards beneath a bit. Maybe put some polythene down or even just thick layer of newspaper until hopefully the cat is better. Bob Martin Stain and Odour removal spray is good stuff (if a bit pricey - in Tesco down the pet aisle)..used loads when our pup was puppy training - there is also a Bob Martin disinfectant (i kept the spray bottle and just put our own disinfectant in) - we spray with disinfectant then spray with the stain removal.

Have you considered bamboo flooring..have a look in Wickes - 12mm boards that seemed good quality to me (there was an open packet on the shelf so i had a good look)..wanted it in our bathroom but a bit of research said it wasn't really suitable - OH was quite disappointed! Can't recall the price offhand but i suspect it was around the £20per sqm range for us to consider it - cheaper than most of the real wood flooring.

Anyway hope your cat gets better soon.

Andy

puddy

she only went in to have her insulin changed over as the previous stuff now seems to be ineffective (they say cats can become resistant to insulin), she was meant to come back out tomorrow, then i got a phone call saying that she seems to have had some sort of haemorrage, not related to the diabetes.

flooring-craft

My reply might be a bit late but hopefully it might help some else who is reading this.

If unsure about whether to restore your old floor boards, lay new wooden floor, laminate or carpet, might be worth calling up a flooring company that offers free quotations to come and have a look at your floor.

Tell them before they turn up at your door what you are considering and that you want a quote for restoring your old floor, laying solid wood, laminate or carpet. They should be able to give you the price for each supply and service.

Once you have decided which option you want (or can afford) make sure that they give you a final signed quote which means that once they have completed the job you will not pay a penny more they agreed.

From experience I would personally recommend Gold Flooring Ltd, they cover Surrey and London area, they have always given me good quotes for my projects

keith969

I've sanded down floors in 3 of the houses I've lived in, and laid floorboards and sanded/varnished them in another, so here's some info.

Before deciding on sanding, take a good look at the floorboards - have they been cut up/lifted and replaced / damaged too much? Check they are firmly nailed down with no nails/other metal bits protruding which will wreck the sanding disks. Get a punch and knock the nails that secure the boards in by 2-3mm so you are not sanding the nails and damaging your sanding disks. If the floorboards have been painted (older houses used to paint the floorboards with some horrid black stuff whose name escapes me) then you will have to remove that first as it will quickly clog sanding disks.

If the floorboards are really bad it might be better to lift them and fit new or reclaimed ones that match. On older houses the floorboards may not be tongued and grooved, in which case they will have gaps between them which can be drafty (yes in one house I actually saw a rug in the living room lift up in very windy conditions due to drafts from the cellar below!) Despite what some will tell you about filling the gaps with e.g sawdust and paste or papier mache, it doesn't work, as the boards expand and contract with changes of temperature and moisture, and the cracks will reopen. Don't bother to fill them, just accept the gaps as part of the look.

Sanding - its perfectly possible to do it yourself, you can hire floor sanders at most decent hire shops. They come in two basic types, a drum sort which has the sanding paper attached to a drum which you move backwards and forwards across the floor like a hoover. The other type is a rotary one, this is used for getting close up to skirting boards etc. and has a circular sanding disk.

Sanding a medium sized room is typically a weekend job if you want to do it right. The dust it creates will get everywhere but you can help by sealing all doors with masking tape, else your whole house will end up with a fine layer everywhere. The noise a sander makes is something else too, you will need in addition to a breathing mask some earplugs!

Start with the drum sander on a coarse paper and sand along the grain to get through the dirt and discoloured wood - but don't oversand, and keep the sander moving at all times else you can end up with a dip in the board that looks unsightly; be very careful about the start and stop of a long run with the drum sander else you will end up with such marks. Do the same around the edges with the circular sander. There will always be bits that the sanders can't reach and the only option here is a scraper and some sandpaper. Once the floor is roughly sanded, switch to a finer paper until the boards are smooth.

Once cleanly sanded, you want to hoover to remove all traces of dust (carefully so you don't mark the boards...) then wipe them down with white spirit (not water). You can then apply stain (I've never bothered) and varnish. It is worth spending good money on a good quality hard wearing flooring grade epoxy varnish; avoid cheap varnish at all costs. You will need 2-3 coats for a good strong finish, leave each coat to dry overnight then when hard, lightly sand with fine grade paper to remove any imperfections.

With care, you'll get a floor that will last 10 years and will only require a light sanding and revarnish then to come up as new again.

andrew-b

Informative post keith ..though the previous poster resurrected a thread a few months old with a post I'm not sure was spam or not ( bearing in mind their first two posts are a recommendation for the same company)!