If you lived in a converted Victorian schoolhouse...

[duchesse]

and your living room had the original pitch pine floor, beautifully worn around the knots by decades of children's feet and complete with original ink stains, BUT quite badly treated over the years, with boards completely cut through and some with significant worm damage (quite a few boards theoretically need replacing), what would you do?

Patch up and preserve as many of the original boards as possible, or pull them all up, insulate over the joists and replace with new boards?

My aunt did the former and had rugs in strategic aka draughty places..

I would love to think I would keep the original one and somehow repair it, replacing only where really necessary. Are there, by any chance, undamaged boards elsewhere you could shuffle about and replace ones that aren't visible with new ones?

Patch up and preserve definitely.

Patch and preserve, while saving so that if you need to replace, you could lay a beautiful parquet floor.

«well jeal»

Could you see if you could buy some equally aged pitch pine floorboards to replace the worst damaged boards?

Great minds, SunnyIntervals!

I would buy replacement old boards - you see loads of them on eBay. Of course I'm a total monster - I painted my floorboards. Yum, lovely painted floorboards....

pull them up, insulate between the joists.

Possibly put them old boards back upside down, which will be less worn and damaged. Any new replacement boards (you will probably have to order them, sawn or put through a thicknesser to match the dimensions of the original, though you may be lucky enough to find some salvage that fits) go in the edges, or in less important rooms.

I always prefer to fix floorboards with screws not nails, as they are easier to tighten and lift. Do all your underfloor plumbing and wiring while the floor is up, and any damp, worm or other work. Maybe put in a trapdoor or two for future access.

We replaced an original wooden floor with supposedly reclaimed wood. It was the worst thing we ever did. The new wood was flimsy and shrunk in the new environment. It now looks dreadful. Stick with the original floorboards and replace any that need it would be my advice.

Thank very much all!

Piglet, funnily enough we scrambled down into the void about 7-8 years ago (when we were thinner and crucially, had a skinny 8 yo to do the really low bits). We shoved sheeps' wool insulation up between the joists and staple gunned it in place in a kind of hammock arrangement with pea netting. I think that some of that might have slipped now as there are several colder spots on the floor. Unfortunately we are not as lithe at 45 as we were at 37 and DD2 is now 16 and adult-sized so no chance of getting to redo it all the same way again (unless we wait for DD3 to be old enough ). So taking them all up is going to be the only option this time! And as you say, while they're all up we may as well sort everything else out...