The house renovation is progressing and I need to start researching flooring so, since I think there maybe some experts here in the Hive, I have some questions.
House is a 1930s south London semi. Living area I’m renovating is an L-shaped dinning, Lounge, Study area measuring a total of about 41 m2. It was originally 3 separate rooms but somebody opened it up. Suspended floors, these are reasonably solid and largely flat although when the carpet was down i could notice a slight rise and fall where the dinning to lounge wall used to be. Hopefully its flat enough to be ok for the flooring we would like, but I don’t know and I may need to do some leveling work.
Fiancee and I think we would like some parquet. I know nothing about it other than i’d like the look and imagine it would be easy to keep clean but, what is it actually like to live with? Household is me, Fiancee and our 15 month old little girl. Fiancee says the house will be a ‘shoes off’ zone so stone scratches should be an issue, although I think I’d treat minor marks as patina anyway….oiled finish better than lacquer in that respect? How does it hold up to spills of liquid though?
Laying and cost. I’m fairly handy with diy and do most jobs but never done parquet, and would be inclined to get it done by a professional for speed. Although I’d be happy to do any levelling, laying sub floor (I assume with a suspended floor the first step would be to screw 9 or 12mm ply down over it?) and maybe to do the finishing (sanding, filling, oiling), possibly, although again for speed, might get the pro to do it. If I were to tackle it myself how long might it take? Anybody diy’d parquet? As for cost, this should be the first question really, what would we be looking at? A quick google and I can find 20mm thick blocks starting from around £25 after VAT, and going up from there. Clearly adhesives and sealers etc would add to that but I assume the big cost would actually be the fitting. I found this site
http://www.oakparquetflooring.co.uk/products/real_wood_flooring/parquet_flooring/tradition_flooring/4027/beech_parquet_flooring_blocks_prime_50x300x20_mm.html
which provides a cost calculator and an estimate of fitting cost, which comes back with around £1800 after VAT for fitting, That seems more reasonable than I thought it might be….maybe that isn’t ‘London prices’ though. Does anybody have any knowledge on approximate costs? Skirting boards and architraves are off and refitting those will be a separate job ( for me, probably). So if I were to budget say £3500 for me to do sub floor prep, to buy the blocks, a pro to fit them and finish, does that sound reasonable or is it way off? I reckon that sort of cost and its something we want, if its more like £5k we would have to think some more, and above that we would drop the idea.
So, STW flooring experts, over to you. thanks.
