In the process of renovating my house, and one room* is going to be a bike cave/workshop/somewhere to put weights for exercises/somewhere for a woodworking bench etc.

But what to put on the floor? Needs to be easy to clean/sweep up, and yet I don’t want something that’ll chip badly if I drop a spanner etc. The subfloor is your typical victorian suspended wood affair. I have to do regular free weights for back problems, so as a bonus something that’s not a disaster if I drop a loaded bar on it, but I can always have a platform on top. And as I’m doing mostly light stuff not building strength it’s not a big issue. Though in the unlikely event I end up with enough free space, getting a cage in there for squats would be a dream…

Initial thoughts are maybe laminate with rubber matting down in “dropping things” areas. Or a cheap short pile carpet. Just wondering what other people have done?

*dining rooms are over-rated.

Oh, and as a bonus it’d ideally not look awful if for some reason/special occasion I cleared the bikes out and moved a dining table in to eat at, that’d be a bonus.

Maybe paint the floorboards plus matting? Pics of your solutions would be good too…

Rubber tiles?Thinking of decking out one end of the garage in them, the clean-ish end for workbench etc.

Interlocking PVC floor tiles

Most of them are heafty so no need to glue them down, come in all sorts of colours and textures, and you can cut them easily with a circular saw.

I’d probably get lino.

What about these as protection over a fancier floor?

Clicky

The PVC floor tiles look good

I guess this on amazon is a less heavy duty version

What about these as protection over a fancier floor?

That’s exactly what I was thinking of when I said rubber matting.

I did think about lino, but there’s something odd about coming across lino in a room that’s not a kitchen/bathroom.

Hmm some interesting options in that PVC tiling. Not sure if it’d be a bit odd indoors though, but then it’s an odd room… and seems very practical.

I’m not sure if there’d be an issue with trapping moisture in the floorboards, no worse than a carpet underlay I guess though. I worry a bit about fluid spills, but then if I’m doing anything that “wet” like a fork service I could put something else down.

I did think about lino, but there’s something odd about coming across lino in a room that’s not a kitchen/bathroom.

We stayed at a posh barn conversion the other month and it took a day to realise the floor was lino and not fancy herringbone wood effect laminate.

Might have been the expensive end of the lino scale though.

Hmm interesting, as you say, maybe pricey, but I may as well look into it.

Decathlon sell foam in a similar jigsaw style to those PVC tiles. Designed for gym floors so good for preventing dropped stuff breaking.

Karndean in whichever pattern/colour you like

Costco also do foam rubber jigsaw tiles for workshop/garage floors.

Can’t beat kitchen Lino (the decent quality thick padded type) for light-use workshop flooring.

Go to your local carpet shop and the will usually have a decent sized offcut you can use