Restoring floorboards - help!

[AyeAyeFishyPie]

We have just bought our first house. It is carpeted downstairs but we aren't fans. We have rolled it up and there are decent floorboards underneath. I have got 2 quotes for sanding and varnishing. For 40msq it's coming in at 1200-1400?! I'm in the SE. It sounds a lot to us. So do we do it ourselves?! Other option is Karndean but does anyone know how much we would be looking at for that space?
Thanks in advance. Feeling a bit stressed!

We had a parquet floor of around 32sqm restored, including replacing damaged areas, staining and varnishing for £1200 in the NW. Doesn't sound a bad price you've been quoted. You won't save money having LVT fitted instead as preparation costs add to the fitting costs. We paid £28psm for prep and fitting, but we got a different LVT at trade price.

We paid about £1k (London) for about 23sqm. That was last year - sanding, three coats of lacquer. We got three quotes (I'm ex local govt and get three quotes for everything), then had to pay an extra couple of hundred for them to remove a concrete bit that used to be a fireplace and have it replaced with reclaimed boards. On the plus side, they did a cracking job and it looks fantastic, as well as being easier to clean!

Thanks wow, seems our quotes are about right then. We were just really surprised. Do you have a prefernece between your LVT and the wooden flooring?

I did it myself a few weeks ago. I am really not a handy person but it looks great and it was not difficult.

I did it myself recently with some help from a neighbour. It's a horrible, dirty and tiring job. However, it cost me around £80 to hire the sanders including the sandpaper ( we actually used just the edger in the end) and managed hallway and sitting room one weekend. I paid neighbour £100 and the floor wax cost about £50
I'm also in the SE and previous quotes I have have been horrendous. If money was no object I'd certainly not choose to do it myself but have probably saved at least £1000

@EyeEyeFishyPie we love the parquet because it is original to the house (we think) and we didn't know it was there until we pulled back the carpet. We only have it in the living room and it is laid on top of the floorboards, so is an extra layer and not draughty at all. LVT is so easy to look after, less noisy than many other hard floors, has a bit of give in it and looks good - needs to be fitted by someone who knows what they are doing though.

Lots of people on MN will tell you wood or engineered wood is the only way to go, but from a practical point of view, LVT is very hard wearing, but not a cheap option.

I'd maybe offer to pay cash, if you don't have morals about things like that, you might get it without vat, even quite large companies do it.

Anyway, that was bout the same price as ours, but I don't know square footage. I would say though they sand it seven times in different types of sand paper then varnish it four times. Totally worth it.

Thanks everyone - mixed bag of opinions! We have got another company coming in to quote tomorrow then we will reassess. I need to strip the wallpeper too so ideally would like to avoid more grim jobs but we will see.

We're looking into this at the moment as well (moving from a house with lovely floorboards to one with laminate downstairs). We've been quoted £12 per square metre for sanding and £15 per square metre for sanding plus 3 coats of lacquer. So yours does seem expensive!

It's not difficult to do, but as a PP said, it's dirty and tiring, and it takes a lot longer than you think it will (hence why we are looking to pay someone else to do ours!)

Sound we habe found someone quoting the same but then lots of things are added on, like any filling in or repairs...

Ah, that makes sense. I'm happy to do the filling in myself, I just don't have the energy for sanding!