Replacing carpets in living/dining room with wooden flooring

[Rollergirl1]

I would like to go for wooden flooring in much of the downstairs. I don't really know what I want. I like the look of panelled and parquet flooring aswell as the reclained and antiqued floors. But I am guessing that this will be really expensive. I have no idea what condition the original floorboards are in. Can you achieve the same results using and restoring the orginial floorboards?

Finally does anyone have any indicator on cost? We would be looking for a professional to do this. I have done a bit of investigation on the internet and is looking like someone professionally sanding and varnishing original floorboards is about £35 per square meter. Would having new floorboards sourced and installed be significantly more than this?

Just after an idea of what to expect before we get some people round to quoute.

no idea on cost, but bare boards are very very cold in older houses.
When we moved in here the bare boards had been well maintained, but we had to put flooring down to avoid hypothermia.

Our house is about 20 years old and has quite a good size living/dining room. We had the carpet ripped up in both and now have oiled oak flooring and it cost £2000.

Flora, as a matter of interest, how old is old? How old is your house? We are moving to a 20's house with stripped original floorboards upstairs, and a replacement oak floor downstairs. It looks lush and we're buying some more rugs to put over them, but I do worry that it won't be very cosy.

The house is victorian so quite old. The rooms are quite big (11ft by 16ft and 11ft by 15ft).

I thouight you had to get all the gaps filled to prevent draughts and the rooms being cold.

didldidi: Was it £2000 for both rooms? Have you used the existing floorboards?

our house is 1890s.

rollergirl, even with filling the gaps, bare boards mean you still only have one layer between you and the foundations ie a few feet of draughty nothingness.

Have just had laminate flooring done in two houses. We chose one of the cheaper ones (in the sale) at carpetright.
In one house we had the lounge and study done (largish lounge and smallish study) and the cost of flooring was just over 500 (no pound key on this lap top) and the charge for the fitter was 275.

In the other house we had the lounge (large) dining room (average) bedroom (average) and tiny bathroom and kitchen done and flooring was 777 and payment to fitter was (I think) 450. Hope that helps costwise

I lived in a 1930s house with no fitted carpets - we had very big antique rugs everywhere, with thick underlay underneath them. That achieved the aims of insulating without looking like fitted carpet, but it does rather rely on you having had a grandfather who was a dealer in antique carpets!

we had polystyrene insulation put under the floorboards....we are cosy! Had floorboards sanded down - was about £600 but that was 5-6 years ago.