I have a dilema. Already have wooden floorboards which I was thinking of having sanded & varnished. Beneath the floor boards there are the floor joists. Does this really get cold ?

Other option is to put a hard wood floor over the current wooden floorboards.

Can anyone give me an opinion on whether it would be too cold to just sand and varnish or whether I should buy hard wood to put over current wood floor.

The price of buying a wooden floor is not exactly cheap either !

personally I would keep the original boards, If they are in good nick you are very lucky. a nice job of sanding and sealing them will look mega IMHO.

oh, and wear slippers if your feet are cold :D

[Edited by mj - 1/15/2004 12:03:15 PM]

They are in good condition, although guess won't able to tell until I have removed all the carpet.

Must be more people out there who have done this .....

Just about to lift areas of our floor to make some changes to the house. At the same time are planning on putting insulation under to keep it warmer :D

all the gear to do the job is readily available for hire,you'll nuke it in a day..

laminates look cheap IMO.

MJ - You got a wooden floor at the moment then ? Or are you doing the same but putting in insulation before sand / varnish ?

cheers

Get the real wood floor, it looks a million times better than any click clack laminate style flooring I've looked at (the missus made me look at a fair bit too when we were deceiding what to put down ;) )

Just putting down laminate after having real wood in last house. It seems that the thickness of the laminate (ours is 9.5mm), quality of the underlay and fitting make all the difference. The 5mm stuff from B&Q is not good. Ours doesn't sound clicky but is spongyier (?) than real wood, although once you've got a rug on the bit you walk on most of the time it's fine.

ive put oak hardwood down, costs a few quid to do but looks great and will outlast the original wooden floor, also can be sanded down and restained 5 times. tried laminates before in the past but if you get them wet and do not clean it up properly or quick enough they tend to warp at the edges so i think the oak justifies the extra few ££££, think ive seen some place doing it as cheap as £25m but i bought mine at costco and was £27m:D

we are going for realwood in all rooms bar the kitchen and kids room which already has b+q laminate- its their pricey stuff and has stood up to a year of 2 dogs, 3 kids and a regular soaking with no sign of wear at all so dont discount laminate in all conditions...it has a place.

ditto on the laminate slating Amtico is good & true it's also expensive but none of the problems you may get with the cheap stuff :D lol. Depends what yer after & what you can/want to budget really but if you are after a wood floor & yer wood is OK then cant see the harm in sanding etc to see if it comes up as desired worst case you can always go over it with laminate or whatever init ;)
Si

you'll nuke it in a day..

I made the mistake of thinking this only to find that the shellac that had been put on my floorboards would melt and then stick to the sandpaper instantly rendering it useless. A job I thought would take a day and a half ended up taking 2 full weekends! Worth it in the end though, just.