Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 Nov 01, 2013 12:05 pm Hi all, i was wanting some advice on removing our old carpets and potentially restoring the floors underneath. we live in a 50s home, rooms are carpeted and i want to get rid of it. I took a look under the corners and i can see something dark and woody :p looks like floorboards to me. There is some sticky substance under the carpet and the carpet is layed on a wooden frame nailed into the floor all around the perimeter of the room I am tempted to rip out the carpets but i am a renovating noob and i have no idea of the kind of pitfalls this job would have. Is this gluey substance a problem? is sanding the floors a real big job? We have 2 kids and lots of furniture. any tips would be great! Re: removing old carpet and restoring floorboards 2Nov 01, 2013 12:14 pm Hi Mimz The frame is typical for laying carpet and should come up relatively easily. The black sticky stuff that you mention is known as black jack - I'm not really sure what it was used for but we had it our place too. Its normally just around the walls though and if you pull back the carpet further you should be able to see the natural colour of the boards towards the centre of the room. You can hire stuff for doing the floor yourself and I've seen some DIY jobs done well and others poorly I guess its just a question of how good you are on the tools but try to start in an area or room where its not going to be too obvious. If you are doing the whole house I would suggest that you get everything out and just do it in one hit - it gets really really dusty and the chances of you being able to cover everything or trying to prevent the dust going all through the house is slim. Secondly the stench from the varnish can be pretty strong and I would want to be out of the house for a few days whilst it all dries and clears so with that in mind it actually work out better just to have someone come in and do it. Best of luck with it though whatever you decide. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: removing old carpet and restoring floorboards 3Nov 01, 2013 11:00 pm Forgot doing it yourself. You're not going to save much money and won't so do anyway as good a job as a pro. Here's a photo of my old house of my 50yo tassie oak floorboard after I ripped out the carpet. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The pros pulled out the staples, punched in nails and puttied the holes before sanding and polishing the floors (3 coats) for $20/sqm. My tip, is move all the furniture to one room and go on a 1-2 week holiday. Enjoy your seeing your beautiful new flooring. Re: removing old carpet and restoring floorboards 4Nov 02, 2013 8:24 am With our first house, we pulled out all the carpets, smooth edge, underlay and the thousands of nails in the floor. We also chiseled out ceramic tiles and removed 2 layers of vinyl tiles and cement sheet. We then orgnised the pro floor sanders/polishes to come in and take care of the rest while we went away for 10 days. Best money ever spent! The floors were fabulous, and not something I would choose to do myself (ripping up the other stuff was the easy part!). Luckily, at that stage, we hadn't moved in yet, and we had no furniture. The dust does get everywhere (including inside your kitchen cupboards (we didn't even have the kitchen floors done!) and I agree the smell of the vanish is pretty strong. Well worth the money spent, and they looked fabulous for the next 12 years before we decided to demolish. Henley - Wilshire Mk 3 ... I love my house!! Site start: 4th Feb 09 Handover: 10th Sep 09 Blog: http://stormygirlscastle.blogspot.com/ Build Thread: viewtopic.php?t=7166 Thanks Chippy,I do have one that I levered out. I'll try to find a brand name on the windows then do some searching. Here is a photo where you can see how worn they are. 2 7960 Hi All New to the forum and looking for some advice, has anyone else renovated an old miners cottage in or around Ballarat and been able to identify the flooring? We… 0 8776 Hi there, looking to have a gym in a new build. Planning to install some sort of rubber mat flooring (on concrete) i.e. Asking the builder to not do floorboards in the gym… 0 1285 |