Has anyone taken up carpets and redone their floor?

[looseleaf]

DH has asthma and our bedroom triggers it so after a year of putting up with it I think we need to do something and on a budget!

I would simply love any advice if anyone's done this already, I'm wondering whether I can just tear a piece off to see what the floor's like underneath? I guess I might find floorboards but if they aren't smooth and flat we might need a new surface before I can put say cork or vinyl on instead?

Many thanks for any advice

I've done it a few times: floorboards are rarely very nice and even but if they are it's fairly straightforward to sand and varnish (just watch out for the sticky black stuff that Victorians and Edwardians put around the edge of rooms - it's hellish). I've also put down engineered wood bought second-hand on ebay and painted a concrete floor white which looked really nice but did need to be repainted every few months.

If the floorboards are uneven you'll probably be able to see that through carpet but, if their wonkiness has been disguised, it's a question of nailing/screwing them all down and then stapling a layer of hardboard over the floor and then putting whatever on top of it.

Thanks so much Lalalonglegs. I think I'm going to tear off a bit later today to see and will try and find out about hardboard so thanks for that.
I do like the idea of cork eg www.wicanders.com/en/collections/corkcomfort/the-collection/ but don't know how much it'd cost yet