What flooring for our study?

[GrendelsMum]

We have a room which we use as a study, which was an old dairy when our house was a farmhouse.

I'm planning to redecorate it after some minor building works in there are finished, and am wondering about the floor.

At the moment, it's got carpet on top of concrete.

The hallway leading to the study has parquet, the dining room has bricks, and the other rooms have terracotta floor tiles.

What do people think would make a good flooring? It's small, north facing, and rather cold and damp, to be honest, as suits a dairy!

Can you try and get hold of some reclaimed parquet?
I think this would suit the style of a study and is warmer underfoot than brick or tiles, and would tie in with your hall floor.
Carpet is even warmer but am presuming you aren't keen on keeping it carpeted?

I love Karndean. Have it in lots of our rooms and works well in our study - easy to glide around on with desk chair! www.karndean.co.uk/site/index.cfm

Gosh, you are all stars! DH is utterly uninterested for 99% of the time, and then suddenly leaps in and vetos my choice. [grrrr face] [embarrassed by memory of public row over flooring in John Lewis]

Having carpet in a dairy does seem rather inappropriate, plus I do worry about the damp (though I think we're fixing that). The previous owner had it all done in a slightly bizarre Provencale style which I don't think quite works, and I've decided to go down the 'emphasising the rustic' line.

I love the idea of the reclaimed parquet, but I think that we'd have to take the concrete up (which might have to happen anyway) to get it to the same level, which would then make it even more expensive.

I really like that Alternative Flooring website - it might help with some of the ongoing eco-guilt

Also, if you use an office type chair with castors, beware you don't get something lovely that even mildly frantic wheeling around might spoil.

Oh, that's a good idea. Thanks. (and appropriate to your name)

! yes !