Replacing carpet with wood - 500 yr old house

[Pebbles1989]

I want to replace the carpet in three small downstairs rooms with oak flooring (preferably solid but I’d consider engineered). Total area is about 34 m sq. I peeled back the carpet in a corner and found wooden flooring underneath - is this likely to be the floorboards or a previous wooden floor? The wood doesn’t look to be in great condition but I can’t really tell.

I’d appreciate advice from anyone who’s done this, particularly if you can recommend a supplier and fitter. I’m in the Home Counties. I realise this isn’t cheap but costs do seem to vary a lot.

I would guess it is the original floorboards. 500 years, wow that is old. Is it listed? Are the boards awful or do you think they could be sanded and varnished or waxed? They may well be oak.

You've probably got fantastic old floorboards.
How wide is each board?

Even if they look rough now, they'll probably look great, when sanded and sealed.
If original, or even just old, they'll add your lovely old house.

You need to find someone who knows what they're doing , to restore them for you. Your house must be listed, so the conservation officer at the local council might be a good place to start- they will know of people who've worked on historic buildings.

As your building is listed, you couldn't remove the boards, or glue engineered wood on top ( which I really really hope you don't want to do), without listed building consent, which you almost certainly won't get.

Restore your ancient floor- it'll look lovely, and enhance your house.

Yes, the house is Grade 2 listed. The board I can get to is 17cm wide - photo attached. You can also see some dark red tile that I didn’t know was there either (this area is next to a fireplace).

Lifting up the carpet makes it feel drafty, which may be one of the reasons for the carpet in the first place (it’s not a very warm house, unfortunately). I’m worried that might be an issue.

You could have them sanded back and varnished, you’d be surprised at how lovely they come up, they will go back to the wood looking like new. However you’re right, it is cold

Ours is an old listed building and our floorboards are exposed throughout the downstairs, and I’ve a huge rug down in the living room, think 16 foot by 16 foot, so only the couple of feet round the edge can be seen of the floor, and I’m seriously considering covering rhe kitchen floor becayse of rhe drafts. They are beautiful,but it’s cold in winter and that’s rhe dilemma.

I used these guys and they were excellent, they will replace old boards if one is bad, fill gaps etc . They sand it seven times in varying degrees of sanding and then varnish it four times. Price was very reasonable. And they cleaned up after themselves too.

I’d get them out to have a look and see what they say. The sanders told me, some folks don’t even lift their carpet to look, they just ask for it to be done and walk away.

I’ve attached three pics of ours before during and after. Ours were already exposed but in a bad way.

www.floorsandingexperts.co.uk