Lifting carpet over wooden floor boards

TrixA

We're in the process of purchasing a probate house and would be planning to remove the ugly old carpet upstairs. I lifted up a corner of the carpet at the viewing and the carpet and underlay appeared to be laid directly over wooden floorboards - the house has really nice wooden floorboards downstairs so I'm hoping these are the same. As my partner has allergies we'd prefer not to replace the carpet.

Can someone give me an idea of the process involved in preparing a wood floor - I'm assuming it will need sanding, varnishing, gaps filled, and possibly a couple of floorboards repaired or replaced. Is this something we could potentially do ourselves or would it be more sensible to get a professional? What would be the approximate cost if we got a professional to do it - the area concerned is approximately 36 m2.

cattie

You could do it yourself, but I've always had my floors done professionally & the results are usually far, far superior than any diy job & of course the floor remains looking good for absolutely years.

I'm no good at working out areas so have no idea of what 36 m2 equates to- perhaps 2 average size bedrooms + landing?

I've recently had the parquet floors in my newish home professionally restored & it cost me around £900. This is for an enormous open plan living & dining room & a hall & included removing & then replacing all furniture once job completed, replacing some flooring blocks where old warm air central heating vents had been & 3 coats of varnish/sealant.

I'd used this guy in my previous home so knew his standards were very high & that the results would be superb.

TrixA

Yes, it's two regular-sized bedrooms plus box room and landing. The stairs are also carpeted at the moment so we'd have to work out what to do with those. I'm just looking for a ballpark figure for budgeting purposes, but hoping it would come in under £1000.

katejo

cattie wrote: »

You could do it yourself, but I've always had my floors done professionally & the results are usually far, far superior than any diy job & of course the floor remains looking good for absolutely years.

I'm no good at working out areas so have no idea of what 36 m2 equates to- perhaps 2 average size bedrooms + landing?

I've recently had the parquet floors in my newish home professionally restored & it cost me around £900. This is for an enormous open plan living & dining room & a hall & included removing & then replacing all furniture once job completed, replacing some flooring blocks where old warm air central heating vents had been & 3 coats of varnish/sealant.

I'd used this guy in my previous home so knew his standards were very high & that the results would be superb.

did your flooring restorer arrange the moving of furniture for you or did you have to do that separately ? I am trying to get a rough idea of the cost of restoring my living room floor.

cattie

No, my flooring guy does it as standard if you're not able to do it yourself for any reason. Of course I always tip them as I'd be utterly stuck without them being willing to move everything & put it back exactly where I want it afterwards.

When my floor was done they finished the final coat, then went off for a few hours to allow floor to dry & came back that evening to put the furniture back & take all the protective tape off of the skirting boards etc.

katejo

cattie wrote: »

No, my flooring guy does it as standard if you're not able to do it yourself for any reason. Of course I always tip them as I'd be utterly stuck without them being willing to move everything & put it back exactly where I want it afterwards.

When my floor was done they finished the final coat, then went off for a few hours to allow floor to dry & came back that evening to put the furniture back & take all the protective tape off of the skirting boards etc.

Are you in London? What condition was your floor before the work was done? I have varnished floorboards but the varnish is now thin in places and there are gaps between boards/ damage by nails. Don't know if it is worth restoring.

trailingspouse

Just one word -

DUST

We did one room, downstairs. We taped up the door, kept all the other doors closed - and when we'd finished, there was a thin layer of dust all over absolutely everything, including the upstairs rooms. It was horrendous. And it killed my vacuum cleaner. Never again.

We did it ourselves (hired the gear) - I think the professionals probably have better dust extraction equipment, and they probably get it done quicker so the dust doesn't have as much time to spread. But if you have anything that might be particularly susceptible to dust I would recommend moving it out of the house entirely until the dust (quite literally) settles.