Late Victorian terrace with an open plan living and dining room (around 25 feet long by 15 wide), opening into kitchen. We replaced the kitchen last year, including a new concrete floor and laying luxury vinyl tiles. We're now getting to the end of the great living / dining room refurb, which has included ripping up the existing engineered wood flooring and running the same flooring as the kitchen throughout.
So, before the great living / dining refurb, the floor in there wasn't level. It didn't look terrible, but was noticeable if you were looking for it. In the course of the refurb, the builder has taken up the old flooring (and some of the floorboards underneath for new pipes - so not a concrete floor) and laid plywood. The idea was that he was meant to be levelling it out, and to be fair I think it's better than it was before.
But, the LVT is now down and it's clear that the floor still isn't level. It runs from the kitchen ok (no threshold thing), but then dips at the end of the dining area before rising again into the living area, where to be fair it seems pretty level. The builder (who we've used before and has always been great) says he thought the LVT guy would use lots of self levelling compound to even it all out. But the LVT guy says his compound was only ever going to be just a couple of mm of latex - not intended for significant corrections.
So basically I'm cross with myself because I've now realised that if I wanted a properly level floor I should have insisted the builder did some work on the joists. We've used the LVT guy before, so I should have clicked that he wouldn't be shovelling on masses of compound to fully level it. Part of me feels we've spent so much money that it's not right that we've ended up with something that's not 'perfect'. But the only way to fix it is to rip up all the LVT and start again, which we can't afford. I can't see the builder wanting to foot the bill - it would all get messy and he's been really good apart from this. To be honest, I'm not sure we'd have opted for the joist work anyway, given the extra costs.
Please reassure me - this sort of thing is part and parcel of owning an old house, right?! The walls are all wonky and I just accept that without stressing out. DH feels we've improved the house so much and that I need to let this go, and I think he's right. But it's hard when you try so hard to get everything just right!
Apologies for length...