WOODEN Floor first time!

[wavingfuriously]

WOODEN FLOORS to be installed.

Please tell me your experiences, what colour did you go for, which thickness of wood if you remember, any problems or regrets?

small property: 40 square metres.

Thank you 😊

All I would say is go for solid wood floors and not laminate etc. Mine is a natural oak and is 2cm thick. It's been down for years and still looks great and will do so probably until I die, lol. Laminate looks good initially but wears pretty quick, can get chipped and not easy to restore from any water spillage and lack of care.

We have engineered oak herringbone

Ours is 10mm thick with a 2mm veneer (sandable layer) we deliberately chose a thinner one because of under floor heating

Ask how you can avoid yellowing - ours has gone very yellow, not due to sun, no idea why but I think some finishes can avoid it

I wouldn't go for solid wood unless I had some specific reason to.

Engineered wood is easier to lay, you can float it - I hate gluing stuff down because it makes it much harder to remove or replace damaged boards. If you add an underlay it helps with the compliance and makes the floor feel a bit better underfoot. It also behaves better under temperature changes than solid wood.

Because you see the top layer of the floor what is underneath is largely irrelevant. Solid wood sometimes does have different plank formats. The only real advantage with solid wood is that you can sand it multiple times, whereas with engineered wood you can only sand the thickness of the wear layer. But TBH sanding is pretty expensive and not something you can do on a regular basis. With house floor styles changing often these days many people would not get the value out of installing flooring that is intended to be in place for decades.

Beading seems to be a contentious topic. I fitted my own with beading and I think and everyone who has seen it thinks it looks fine. But there are people out there who think beading looks awful.

What is beading please?

And, you sound like an expert the 'random' pattern (different lengths of wood) was recommended because the flat is a small area but someone else said it looks too 'busy'

Thank you

We have bamboo flooring. Wasn't cheap but still looks good over 15 years later.

I have no comment on random pattern, it's a personal preference.

Beading is the edging you add round the edge of the flooring to cover the expansion gap between the floor and the skirting boards. The alternative is to remove the skirting boards and then put them back above the floor once it is laid. I don't know whether it works out more expensive. If you remove the skirting boards I guess there is a possibility it might damage them and they will need replacing. OTOH if you put beading in that costs, and you might have to prep it beforehand. I prepped mine by painting and used caulk to blend them into the skirting boards. It looks like part of the skirting board that way.

When I write the above I don't really see why lifting the boards should be more expensive than beading. But according to some people it looks 100x better. So flooring companies probably charge a lot more for it, even though it might take them less time to do and cost them less.

Oh and re patterns if you have same length boards some say you are not supposed to do H pattern. Apparently that is weak because of the joint placement.

I did thirds, each board offset from the next by 1/3. I think that is a reasonable compromise between not having the H pattern and having joints all over the place if you go for a smaller offset.