Has anyone moved into a house without floor coverings?

At the moment we are planning on organizing our floor coverings ourself after handover with the builder. But, if money is a bit tight at the end of the project, we may have to put this off for a while.

I was just wondering if anyone on here has moved into their home without floor coverings done? When my parents did their extension, they just painted the concrete and put rugs down for the first couple of years, then did tiling. Sure its not ideal, but it serves its purpose until we get the cash to do it properly.

I also don't want to put cheap and nasty tiles down as its so hard to redo them.

Yes, when we built our first house, we lived on concrete floors until we saved enough to buy the tiles we wanted. We then learned how to lay tiles.
Every weekend (and some nights) we'd do a bit until it was all done.

Funny this bought back memories of doing the hallway, we did one side then the other so that we could walk up and down on one side at a time

Although concrete dust is a dog and gets in everything.

thanks for the reply. We are planning on putting a concrete paint down over the floor pretty much right away, as this seems to seal it against the dust rising off it. I hope so anyway

We're currently living in a shed while our house is being built.

However, it's a pretty good shed.....120sq metres. lined, partitioned, air-conditioned etc.....

We bought carpet tiles from a local discount carpet store and they were easy to install over the bare concrete floor. Cutting the tiles around the room edges was a bit fiddly and time-consuming but it was pretty easy to get a very professional-looking result. A nasty paint spillage showed me how ridiculously easy it was to clean the tiles, which could've been replaced in 5 minutes anyway....but it just wasn't necessary. I had the same sort of carpet tiles in a workshop at our previous place and was always amazed at the punishment they could take and still look great with a quick vacuum.

In the house we're building, we're also installing floor coverings after handover. If there's a delay for whatever reason I might reuse the carpet tiles rather than have bare concrete for a month or two.

But, i won't be painting or sealing the floors unless I can be certain this won't affect tile adhesion.

In some ways bare concrete at least makes it obvious to everone that this isn't the final flooring....not that that matters. I suppose.

In many ways I think leaving a lot of the work until after handover makes it easier to get it right and spreads the fun and excitement. I'm not sure I really wnt it to be "all finished" when we move in as this doesn't leave anything to look forward to.

But maybe I'm just rationalizing decisions that are more based on fund limitations and difficulty choosing everything before we can see the finished house.

To tell the truth, we're "all decisioned out" ATM and we're happy not to make any choices (like carpets etc) until we have to.....

cheers
zeke

Hi,
I know it's my first post but have been following this site for yonks. Have renovated 2 homes and currently building a new one. Joined up just so i can comment on this.
My advice is do NOT i repeat do NOT paint the concrete floor if you intend to tile later. I have been there and done this and it was a HUGE mistake. The painted floor is fine to live with and looks reasonable but needs to be REMOVED if you are to do the tiling job properly. I have done this myself and it means hiring a concrete grinder which requires water (LOTS of water) to be running all around inside your house (ours had all concrete block walls so was ok). Best of luck with your flooring.

Our neighbor moved in with No floor coverings, so it can be done.

Yes, we lived on concrete floor for about 10 months. The concrete dust was annoying, but hey - we survived.