Good, cheap floor coverings?

[imaginaryfriend]

We've got to move quite suddenly in the New Year with not much of a budget at all. We're moving into a 2-bedroomed flat which has just hardboard flooring in the lounge and bedrooms. Ideally we'd like to cover the floors before we move in but are avoiding carpet as all have asthma, dd very badly - does anyone have any hints as to what kind of floor covering is relatively cheap but not awful to look at? We're totally new to this.

TIA

Sounds too small. I would have thought the absolute minimum would be 2x2m = 4 sq m and even then, that's quite small for a double bedroom...

Mumpbump, you can see how clueless I am I meant 3m x 3m for the whole room, so 9m squared. I realised it only when a guy in a carpet shop today looked at me as if I was mad.

I've dragged dd all over the place looking at various options. Laminate I'd love but it's beyond our budget, we could only really afford to do one room. Other options included a very hard-wearing low-pile carpet for the lounge which wasn't bad and the guy said he'd fit it for £7 a square metre which I thought was pretty good, I think the lounge would cost us then about £120. Dd seems to really like the pale wood-style vinyl coverings (thank goodness because most of the vinyl flooring we've seen has been awful!) that would come in at about £80 fitted and we'd probably go for the same for the other bedroom and get a nice rug at some point in the future when we can afford it. It's going to cost us £350 though for the lot, at least, and we won't manage to get the hall done.

After talking to dp we just decided that me trying to do it single-handedly with so many other things to do just wasn't going to be an option.

We have a very tight budget and had to replace our kitchen and bathroom flooring. We bought the lino tiles from B&Q that already have adhesive on the back. You just have to peel the backing paper off and stick them down. If you need to cut any to size it can be done with a stanley knife. DP fitted them and found them very easy to fit. You do need to have a very level floor though otherwise they don't stick very well. I have found they clean really easily, the only downside is there is only a limited choice of patterns and colours. I think they were about £2.49 per pack, they were from B&Q's value range. Our bathroom needed 6 packs and cost about £16.

tutu, I was looking at those today actually. The problem for us is that it would be hard to get away with the colours and patterns they have on offer in a lounge or even a bedroom. But they would be fine in a kitchen or bathroom. I wish they had other colours because it would be a good solution for us.

I guess you've probably tried other DIY chains, but Wickes and focus had more choice in their slightly more expensive range. It might still work out quite cheap for you though if your rooms are particularly big.

tutu, I've only looked in a couple of places so far, but lots online. I've checked out two small local firms, B&Q, Topp's Tiles and tomorrow going to look at Floors to go. One of the most annoying things is that I don't have the exact dimensions of the rooms as when we viewed the flat I didn't take a tape measure with me and we can't go back until we get the keys which is proving to take ages. So everything I do at the moment is a lot of guess work.

Does 6 x 4 m seem a reasonable estimate for an average-sized lounge?

The laminate IF, did they not have packs of it for £4-5? We used about 12 packs for the kitchen and front room and little hall.

At b&Q, cc? The cheapest I saw was about £12 a pack and I worked it out, roughly, given the dimensions of just the lounge that that one room would cost about £160 with underlay. Our max budget is £300 to cover lounge, two double bedrooms (one big, one small) and a very small hall. We can leave out the hall and would probably leave out the lounge if we have to but I'd much rather get it done before we move in as there isn't enough space really to move things off the floors anywhere else if we do it when moved in.

My mum was suggesting we opt for very low pile carpets as she says they're not too bad for asthma. Then we could get laminate or vinyl flooring for dd's bedroom. Carpets seem to come much much cheaper than all other kinds of flooring I've found so far.

We paid about £5 for ours per pack, and my friend who moved about 6 months later, this time last year got it for 3.80 something a pack, id thought my £5 a pack was cheap enough.
This was b and q basics.

Definitely didn't see anything that cheap when I went there. The biggest bargains we saw were carpet tiles but by the time you'd got the underlay etc. it would have been quite pricey.

carpets are often cheaper and a lot of places will also fit them v cheap. Persoannly I belive carpets can be better for allergies as it traps dust, whereas hard floors mean teh dust is on top and moves around more. Now please don't quote me on that, but I have seen research that backs this up, as everyone went hard flooring and claimed it was better for allergies, however if you have dust or dirt on a hard foor it moves on yop and gets into the air more easily than on a carpeted floor as that traps dirt/dust until you hoover.

Also imho cheap carpet can look better than cheap lino. Check out local carpet warehouse type places as they always sell room sized remenants and goosd basic rolls of carpet v cheap. Carpetright an dthe like are not as good and are more likely to charge and arm/leg for fitting. This si where your local chap is far far better

Oh yeah, our local carpet shop does the MOST FAB sale and we got 3 carpets for £30, ten quid each because we went with the measurements, got room sized carpets and then painted AFTERWARDS...instead of painting first then looking for a carpet

HI cc!

Thanks, crunchie, that's interesting. I've always been told that carpets are bad for asthma, but yes, the local carpet man could give us a much better deal on carpets, including fitting, than he could on vinyl flooring.