Advice about wood flooring

[hurricane]

Want to replace carpet in dd2's room with wood flooring. Don't want laminate. What should I go for? What's the difference between engineered, solid and stip in appearance and price? How much should I expect to pay roughly for a fairly large bedroom?

All advice appreciated.

We've gone for the cheapest option - wood effect lino!
Needed to put plywood down first - so the floor boards didn't show through but now (2 years later ) are very happy with our east clean floor.

No one else?

You can get solid floorboards - hard wood is more expensive than soft wood - or the engineered ones which have a real wood veneer. The solid ones will be more expensive than the veneer ones and you can get different thicknesses of veneer. Also, on the engineered ones, you will find that you can get a different number of individual "strips" on each board. The more strips you have, the cheaper they tend to be.

Cost-wise, when we were looking at this, solid pine was a minimum of £25 psqm. Topps Tiles had an offer on an oak veneer which was about £15 psqm. It's worth having a look around at the moment as it's summer so you can probably find sales.

As far as I know, the engineered stuff has a finish on it, eg. laquer, so you don't need to do anything else. The solid stuff you can buy with a finish which makes it more expensive or unfinished. If you buy it unfinished, you may need to sand it back to remove any marks, stain (if you want to) and then seal with varnish/wax or whatever finish you want. Much more work involved.

HTH.

BTW, have you had a look to see what is under the carpet? If upstairs, you might already have floorboards which would then just need to be sanded and sealed...

We've got solid oak, which was waxed. Varnish scratches reet easily.

Engineered board has a thick veneer that can still be sanded. This is the only option if you want underfloor heating.

You can get reclaimed oak for that antique look.

When buying, be very, very careful of cheap deals from big warehouses. They're often offering Chinese oak which has a higher moisture content than European oak. Thus as it dries out, it shrinks a lot, leaving gaps

soryy, DS2 wailing

Oak flooring here - waxed not varnished - good tip from Highlander.

I can't help you on cost because I don't know what the prices are nowadays and I don't know how large a fairly large bedroom is.

It is expensive - from memory we paid around £3k for lounge and hall - but that was some time ago. You can get good deals from warehouses - and they are responsive to questions about sustainability etc. Highlander has added a good point about moisture content as well.

You need to think about how it fits up to your skirting boards. Ours have a sort of trim thingy that looks nice and is MUCH cheaper than having the skirting boards up anyhow!

the stuff we use is Osmo Polyxwax (an oil/wax combo).

we had the floor laid then a white bead nailed on top close to the skirting.

ours cost (inc fitting) GBP56/metre.

God, it's soooooooooooo damn easy to look after! I hate carpets!!

Yes I agree. Fitted carpets were a luxury item when houses in the UK were either damp or cold or both.

Now that most houses in the UK are neither damp nor cold, why have the tyranny of trying to keep a blardy carpet clean?

Hurray for liberating not-carpet flooring.

Thanks for all the advice. Agree about carpets.

Anyone had the parawood? On the floors to go site it says it is solid wood, but it is lots cheaper than all others. I couldn't figure out the catch. Am wondering if it's to do with moisture content, which I hadn't considered.

never heard of it - how thick is the actual wood veneer?

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If you have sanded floorboards which have little gaps between them, most of the dust falls down the cracks

If you decide to go for oak, as others have said, make sure it is fully dried out. I would recommend having it delivered and then keeping it at home for a while (sorry can't remember how long for). Also bear in mind there are different grades depending on what you like. I think generally it is more expensive without knots, cats paws etc however you may like to have these as you feel they add character. You will need to get a good fitter and think about appropriate skirting. We have all hard floors in our house and whilst I wouldn't have it any other way I would add that you see the dust more than on a carpet!

aha COD!!!!!!! That statement makes you sound like my 80-year old MIL

('a bit of tweed in a carpet hides the dirt better')

We got indonesian walnut flooring for our lounge - got engineered as it came in longer planks, some of the cheaper stuff were little short planks. The place we got it had half the qty as returns - which we could inspect before buying it. Only the wrapping was ripped - the wood was fine. So the whole lot came in at £23 sq. mtr.
It is beautiful - BUT - it needs brushed at least once a day.
We got cheap and cheery lighter coloured laminate for the office - and thats what we'll get for ds bedroom too. Nice rug on it and replace the cheapie stuff if it gets trashed or the room gets made into an adults room. It was only £12 sq. mt.