Floor boards in the bedroom?

[theHoHoHouseofmirth]

I know all the hygenine arguments but am wondering about insulation - sound and heat. Our bedroom is quite large (18' x 14') and has 12' high ceilings. Being in an Edwardian house our insulation is pretty poor and the bedroom has a massive bay window so it's pretty cold in there. I sit inevitable that bare floor boards would add to this problem? And would it be very noisy downstairs?

TIA

Rugs, one at either side of the bed.

Unless you're in the habit of trotting round your bedroom in boots, noise isn't an issue in an adult bedroom and usually by the time you're in the bedroom, no one's downstairs.

I'd be more concerned about draughts than noise TBH. I tend to go for carpets upstairs and floorboards downstairs. And good thick curtains on the window.

If you want to go for a traditional Edwardian decor, you'll want a large rug that goes nearly to the edges of teh room, then stain the floorboards dark and varnish. Still would be a bit draughty though.

Effie that was the look I was thinking of but DH will only be swayed if I can convince him that it won't be cold...

Do the floorboards have gaps or are they tongue and groove? If there are gaps it will be colder, though warmer than bare boards and the odd small rug I would imagine.

BTW if the boards do have gaps you can get wooden wedge thingies to seal them up. Also check for any gaps between the floor and the skirting board.

Have to say that we had exposed floorboards in the main room of our first floor flat, but they were in a bad state and very gappy. Now we have laminate (not to everyone's taste I know) and fixed the windows and the room is SO much warmer.

If you like wooden floors but don't want draughts, you can put down a new wooden floor on top of the boards (and with insulation between) so you would get wood look but without the drawbacks. Except the cost, of course...

If your boards have gaps, seal them with brown mastik (really!) It looks amazing - I was dubious until I saw it done on a friend's sanded pine floor, it just looks like the gap between boards only it's sealed and won't shrink and drop out.

Bit late to this but we've always had floorboards in our bedrooms - and our house sounds similar to yours. If you seal between and around ( get lengths of wooden beading and use it to seal the gap between the floorboards and skirting boards, then paint it white to match the skirting boards - you won't notice it) then it's not draughty at all. If you have your rads by the windows then the hot pipes leading to them under the floorboards give a rather lovely underfloor heating effect...!