Restoring Floorboards

[StillTryingtoBuy]

We’ve taken up the flooring in our new house - typical 3 bed Victorian terrace, on the small side. We’re getting plumbing / electrics done and wondering about flooring afterwards. Our preference would be to restore the floorboards. I know it’s a bit of a piece of string type question but I’m wondering about ballpark costs to do this…for hall, landing, 3 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms…? The boards look to be mostly good quality but some rooms are very wonky. I suppose we’d need to deal with that whether we do carpets or floorboards. Any advice?

If you can work out the sq mtrs you need restoring a flooring company will give a rough quote over email. They may ask for a few pictures as well.
Every quote I’ve had has been based on sq mtrs.

By restore, do you mean sand and finish?

We have just had our through-lounge sanded - essentially, two small rooms.

It cost us altogether around £850 (East Midlands) which included a few repairs (£30 per repair).

We are trying (ha!) to oil it ourselves (long story). But that may add another £100 on if you ask them to do it.

If you intend to restore the floorboards, make sure they don’t make a huge mess of them unnecessarily! The previous owners had the plumbing done, and made a right mess of the ones in the kitchen-diner.

By them I mean the guys who are going to redo the plumbing.

27 years ago Dh hired a sander to renovate the floor boards - it's a bothersome job. He swore never again would he do it himself

I would pay someone to do it and make sure they infill between the boards before it is is oiled / sanded.

Have you taken up the floorboards as well as the floor covering or just the floor covering? If both, it will be a lot more costly.

I’d also consider how noisy it will be downstairs if you have people walking on bare floorboards above. I love original floorboards, and it was my intention to have them restored in our house, but I’ve now decided on engineered wood for this reason.

If you can DIY at least some of the process it will save a lot of money. We did two bedrooms and the hall, living room and dining room and it took a very long time, was very disruptive and dusty, but only cost the price of hiring the sander (a couple of hundred £) In hindsight, we should have waited until we had enough to pay the professionals because they fill the gaps in the floorboards and treat them with the good stuff. Also - if you're restoring the floor, make sure you do absolutely everything else in the house first, or you'll wreck them!