Wooden floors

[LiliaBell]

Best place to get solid wooden flooring for living room, and hallway?

To lay yourself, or by professionals? If you live in Dorset I can recommend an excellent company who laid a couple of parquet floors for us 30 years ago and they still look like new.

Do you really mean solid or is engineered wood ok? Why solid? Less choice. Narrow strip or planks? Or parquet? So much choice! Click fit or not? What wood? Some places have discontinued or sell off over supply on huge orders - just Google!

Can I ask how you wash or clean them to keep them looking new? I must be doing something wrong?

Don’t wash wood! Why would you? Clean any spills immediately. Make sure your top coat on the floor is high quality and doesn’t let stains through. Be careful with the floor. We just vacuum. Quick wipe with a damp cloth is all it takes. Rarely.

Well, we don't wear shoes in the house, so I suspect that has a lot to do with it 😁

Thank you! We don't wear shoes inside either, but the dogs bring in a lot of dust no matter how much we wipe their feet. I thought you could mop with wood soap, but with very little water. I've never tried to be fair.

My entire downstairs is antique pine parquet which my dh hand laid himself (self taught thanks to YouTube). As I've got kids and dogs the floor gets grubby so it's hoovered daily and I steam it every couple of weeks. It's takes an absolute battering but looks amazing years later.

Wood and dogs doesn’t mix in my view. Look at occasional wiping down but if your top coat is harmed, water damages the wood. Would not go near mine with a steamer.

The floor has been down over ten years. It was reclaimed from an old junior school so you can imagine the traffic that had seen. Once it had been re laid and re sanded it was like new. The steamer does no damage whatsoever and the dogs make no impact. If any of the floor starts to look worn it will be re sanded and re varnished. Simple.

I ordered from
https://www.suttontimber.co.uk/products/flooring/
And fitted it myself a couple of years ago, it's been excellent.

I used mixed width solid oak boards (T&G), quite doable as a DIY project, but essential to have a mitre / compound saw, with good alignment.

We used reclaimed pine throughout the house from our local salvage yard. It was expensive to do but 15 years on and it still looks great. We have only had to re coat the surface once. As the heavy traffic areas wear it gives it a lovely patina imo

Reclaimed is different. New wood and caring for it requires less intervention.