floor boards in the bedroom - DIY?

[MiaN]

we are renovating house, and impressed by the floor boards once we lifted the carpets upstairs. I am tempted to get them treated and just have them

DH is thinking of painting them, or treating the wood himself. Any tips, views etc? If you have done something like this would you share pictures?

We may try with small spare room before taking decision for the rest of the bedrooms

If you could rent a sander and sand them and finish them with a wax or clear (not shiny) varnish that would be lovely. We have a lot of white painted wooden floors and I wouldn't recommend that, it looks lovely but they always look dirty and literally show up everything!

We've done this multiple times. Depending on the size of the room a handheld sander could do the job (they're about £30-40 from B&Q etc) and then oil in whichever finish you'd prefer. There are natural, whitewash or darker stains. I'd highly recommend topping with a SATIN finish oil (something like Osmo Oil) not a Matt one, which we used to start with but everything just looked a bit dusty even when cleaned.

You can just use a roller to apply the varnish and oil so once sanded it's super easy to do :)

We had blu-grey painted floors in an old house and they hardly showed dirt at all, I was always astonished by how grimy a mop would come up...
I've not DIYed but know lots of people who have. We were going to re-paint the blue floors in a lighter colour and so sanded them (with a hand sander. Dull but easy!) and then decided we liked the effect so left them.

Make sure you knock any nails down below the surface with a hammer and nail punch before you try to sand. I learned that the hard way!