Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering 1 May 18, 2019 8:33 pm I'm renovating a 70-80 year old low-set. Took up the old cork tiles tonight and they came up far more easily than we'd expected. The floor beneath is hardwood (don't know species). The hardwood floors are exposed in one half the house and have been stained and polished in two different tones. One stretch is very dark, another room is a more honey colour. In both rooms the boards have worn really well over the years. It'd be 10 years at LEAST since they were done, if not 20 (the cork tiling was about 20-25 years old and wrecked). The exposed floor we're now looking at has never been polished or finished, it's just very old raw boards. Restoring them would involve replacing about 15m2. We've visited the local demolition yards and there are some boards there that may well work. We had been looking at laying a floating floor over these boards because we assumed the cork had been glued direct to the boards and it'd shred them when it came up. I've reservations about a floating floor because we're in Townsville - one person tells me theirs is great, the next tells me I'll get three years out of it and it'll buckle or separate. We were looking at bamboo boards but were similarly, concerned about warping. Our floor is really not that level. This is really a time / effort / money question. The total area of flooring in question is probably 120m2. If I restore the floor, I need say 20m2 of replacement timbers, then I need the entire 120m2 sanded back and finished. I might be able to source that 20m2 from the demolition folks. If I go over the floor, I'm looking at 120m2 of a high quality floating floor plus whatever underlay I need for this climate / this uneven subfloor. Am I insane to consider restoring these old floorboards? Is it going to break my heart? Am I going to get a quicker/cheaper/long-lasting finish out of a floating floor? I can supply pics if anyones' interested. Re: Floorboards - restore or go over? 2May 18, 2019 8:43 pm We've had real floorboards in many houses, include a lovely Queenslander in West End. There is no denying that engineered boards have come a long way, but there is nothing as warm, welcoming and valuable as real floorboards. Without seeing what you have exposed (please post some photos) I suggest on face value you undertake the restoration. Re: Floorboards - restore or go over? 3May 18, 2019 9:11 pm Four pics - the top two are the boards that were probably last done >10 years ago. The bottom two are samples of what we've uncovered from under the cork tiles tonight. We went a bit wild and reefed up chunks of cork tile willy nilly so we'd know if the boards were consistent everywhere, and sure enough there's a patch of about 10m2 inside the front door which isn't floorboards at all, so between that and patching that's where I get my figure from of what I might have to replace. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Floorboards - restore or go over? 4May 18, 2019 10:24 pm Now that I've seen them, I would double my recommendation. We recently stitched in some replacement boards in a Canberra home, because parts had been poorly patched. Now that they have been replaced, and the entire floor finished consistently, it looks great. While more expensive, I have no doubt you can achieve the same result. That said, I hope you have some money in the budget for rugs - but don’t buy them new, as the cost of new rugs is exorbitant, and you can get them cheaper when they are lightly used. 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 8777 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 1340 Hi everyone, Looking for some advise. We are about to build an above ground pool in our backyard. There is a private sewer line running under the pool at 1.6m… 0 11763 |