Flooring Level Dilemma Victorian Hallway

[MusicMum80s]

We had to lift up the oak floors installed in a house we just bought an luckily found original Victorian floorboards in great condition. We were planning to lay new flooring but now want to restore them. However, we were also planning to tile the hallway with Victorian style tiles but that we create a difference in levels between the hallway and the reception rooms. Has anyone else with Victorian tiles and original Victorian floorboards and figured out the level change?

Are you absolutely decided on tiles? Would you consider one of the very good tile-alike vinyls? They’d look right, and be cheaper, and you wouldn’t have the height difference. Warmer too.

What's in the hall now and are you planning to tile over it? If you remove what's there already will that resolve the level.
You can get oak threshold strips that will work. We used one for a 1cm difference. Definitely a budget solution though. If it had been up to me we would have levelled the floor.

If you are going to restore the floorboards, will you be lifting them to re-lay? Sometimes it’s needed to eliminate gaps and squeaks. If so, you could add a subfloor layer to bring it up to the same level as the tiles.

If not, you can just use transition trims of wood to create a tiny slope between the tiles and the wooden floor. We have these in some doorways where bedrooms come off a hallway and while not ideal I honestly don’t notice them and have never stubbed my toe or tripped over. The height difference is only about 2cm though, what would yours be?

Id steer away from using tile pattern Lino. It would be easier but wouldn’t look half as good as real tiles

We weren't planning to relay them but that's a good idea @Newbie887 The hallway is the same as the living room was. Ply and solid oak floors on top of the pine floors. Once we remove all that the pine boards will all be at the same level so laying the tiles on top make the hallway finished floor higher. I think we might either relay the floors on top of a marine ply base or do transition strips. The difference is about 1.5-2cm

Relay them so that you can INSULATE under them.

Our builder was suggesting insulating the joists as part of the work he's doing. I'm always nervous about insulation in parts of the house that need cross ventilation but with the right membranes it should work.

Victorian floorboards are generally about 20-24 mm thick

Tiles are usually about 10mm
thick but if you stick to a design made of the small 5cmx5cm tiles, like the classic small chequerboard, you can get these in 5mm thickness. Look for Winckelmanns brand, they are most authentic repro and offer this choice of thicknesses

So if you take up the Victorian floorboards in the hall (assuming that’s what’s under the modern wood) and lay 10mm ply instead, you should have enough space for 5mm tiles on top (plus adhesive & ditra matting), whilst still matching the living room height.

If the boards are really thick like 24mm+, you could possibly use 10mm tiles.

Best to confirm with flooring guys though! And best to check for sure what’s under your current hall floor.

The Winckelmans aren’t cheap tho, either to buy or to lay (needs a specialist tiler) so depends if this is in budget

Our flooring guy who is doing the floorboards can also lay intricate mosaic Victorian tiling and we were planning on classic checkerboard pattern. He's worked for us on our previous house doing almost everything. I have been reading up and it looks like Victorian homes often didn't continue the floorboards into the hall and instead used battens and pugging boards added at the bottom of the joists to form troughs and then filled that with materials and then laid a screed. I'm going to get the hall flooring pulled up I think before making a final call on the best approach but minipie that's a very helpful suggestion to use a thinner marine ply base than the boards to minimise the height difference.

Hmm if you find your original hall subfloor is screed over a bunch of crap (Technical term) rather than boards, it’s going to be harder to get that all off and replace with ply compared with simply lifting old boards.

Are you sure you don’t have original tiles under the modern wood?

@minipie I have no idea. We'll soon find out.

I'd be wary of using only 10mm ply under tiles, I'd worry it would move too much.

It would be ply and screed for the tiles. We can build up the floor in the lounge though to match using marine ply underneath the original floorboards.

If anyone on this thread already has them, do they scratch terribly? I've only had oak before which is naturally much tougher so I'm just having a wobble about going with exposed pine.

Our house is late Victorian with exposed floorboards throughout. They are some sort of softwood (pine I guess) and I presume they are the originals. We don’t have a tiled hall as our house was never that grand originally, so it seemed a bit much (we re-tiled the exterior path instead).

I am thinking that your oak flooring must have been in really bad condition for you to rip it up and prefer plain boards? My understanding is that the Victorians covered most of them up with rugs everywhere. I have a dust allergy so we minimise rugs and a lot of ours are exposed. We had some of ours sanded and oiled, others had been done by the previous owners and probably need a refresh. They do get pitted by furniture, nails come up now and again and some boards have been cut in the past so you can see the cuts. I am at peace with the shabby chic look but I would love engineered wood if we could justify spending the money.

The oak was in rough condition but more relevant was that we needed to move some plumbing around and because of how the floors were laid they couldn't be saved. I've had engineered floors in the past and loved them but was pleased to see the original floorboards in tact when we lifted up the flooring.

The quality of the wood is likely to be better than modern pine floorboards tbh. You can get oils that harden to provide a protective layer to treat the wood. All your furniture will need felt pads and the floor won't stay perfect looking for long.

I have stripped floor boards suspended over a void underneath. I dearly wish that I had had insulation installed and the floors relaid. It would make a huge difference to the warmth in the house. The insulation can be put between the joists underneath and shouldn't really affect the air flow underneath. I say this despite being very wary of the effect some insulation can have on houses and wouldn't consider cavity wall.

I also have different levels into a tiled kitchen, cloakroom and bathroom on the ground floor. It's a bit of a pain to be honest. Most of the threshold strips I looked at were horrible. I ended up making my own and staining them to match the floors which does look fine but it is a trip hazard for young kids and the less mobile. What annoys me most though is it means I can't set my robot vac for the whole ground floor - seriously thinking of making little ramps!

I hope my pictures are useful to you.

If we keep the reclaimed boards, then I think we'll insulate the joists and also also level the floor with marine ply to the tiled hallway before relaying the boards so its not a trip hazard as we have two young children. This thread has been incredibly useful.

After 5 years at our old house our engineered oak floors were also terribly scratched and with engineered boards you can't re-sand them very frequently. I think I'll give the original floorboards a go with felt on the furniture. I think I'll feel less precious about the Victorian floorboards get scuffed than brand new flooring where it looks really glaring.

Absolutely. If you can always just lightly sand something off and reseal.

Couple of tips if you do go with boards. I find brown acrylic markers and/or a tiny bit of brown acrylic paint (there are lots of shades, try The Range) good for scratches. Don't pay for the specialist ones.

If you get anything nasty on them - I've had blobs of dried paint - pop a warm wettish cloth on it, go and have a cup of tea. Nine times out of ten you'll come back to find it will wipe or gently scrape up without any harsh products.

@MusicMum80s pine floors were cheap. They weren’t put into higher class houses. It’s a softer wood than oak. We found oak floor boards and retained them but I’m not sure I would with pine. It often had knots and is not regular depth, so if you are spending a lot on the hall, the effort and expense to relay the pine will be spent on an uneven soft wood.

These are fairly wide (circa 200mm) with very few knots. I think most homes in London were built with pine, even the large villas in our neighbourhood which is part of a conservation area. Reclaimed London pine floors can sell for £170 per square meter from reclamation yards so its probably just a matter of personal taste.