Hardwood floor or carpet in renovated flat?

[SonicHedgeHog]

My flat will shortly undergo a modest renovation before being put up for sale. It’s a quality property suited to young professionals and sits towards the pricier end of the market in the local area. We need to replace the flooring in the hallway, bedrooms and living room and are torn between quality carpet or hardwood. In all it’s about 60m2 so the hardwood is a much more expensive option.

If you were in the market for this type of property would you be impressed by hardwood floors? Would you be more likely to buy? Would you think you’re getting a superior property? Would you miss the softness of carpet? Would you think you’ve got to buy lots of rugs?

We are trying to present it for the quickest possible sale and not to squeeze every last penny out of it. Can I please have some opinions on the two options? Keeping the old flooring is not an option.

[SEDon]

Some would be impressed by hardwood floors, some wouldn't have a clue if it was plastic down there. Impossible to say, but personally I like hallway/living areas hardwood, bedrooms carpet

[OutInTheShed]

Carpet for noise reasons in a flat?

[Cow Corner]

Worth checking if there any restrictions on having hard flooring in your lease.

Personally, I’d suspect it won’t have a material impact on value or desirability, so would go with a decent quality carpet.

[kambites]

IMO if you're going to immediately sell it, stick in cheap carpets because there's a good chance whoever buys it will immediately rip them out and replace them with whatever they like anyway.

[SonicHedgeHog]

Hardwood floors have to have underlay for noise despite solid concrete floors.

A mixture of flooring isn’t possible. We want a a continuous flow throughout.

It needs to be move in ready. Quality flooring will be going down for this reason.

I know this isn’t a very exciting subject but I’m still surprised by the collective shoulder shrug. That tells me a lot - this isn’t as important a subject as I thought it might be.

[PhilboSE]

Well…I renovated a flat and it came with an original woodblock floor…I chose to keep it rather than cover up.

However in your case, wouldn’t installing a wooden floor require either taking off the skirting boards, or installing a scotia (nasty)?

[Wacky Racer]

I would say generally, younger people (under 40) might prefer wooden flooring in a flat

Personally, I would always go for carpet, places with wooden flooring always look bare and uninviting to me, a bit like a dentist's waiting room.

However, I'm well over 40.

[kambites]

PhilboSE said:

However in your case, wouldn’t installing a wooden floor require either taking off the skirting boards, or installing a scotia (nasty)?

It is possible to install floating tongue and groove wooden flooring without removing the skirting boards. You under-cutting the skirting and door frames and then slide the flooring underneath; for the final edge you side the boards under at an angle until they can drop down, then pull them back to mate the tongue in the groove.

It's fiddly though, and only works properly if the skirting boards are roughly twice the depth of the tongue on the floorboards (or more).

[SonicHedgeHog]

Small skirting boards unfortunately. Developer installed them years ago so goodness knows how they’re attached. Part of the extra cost of hardwood would be replacing all the skirting boards as it would be quicker and easier to fit larger new ones covering the scruffy wall behind than work with the existing ones. I’d do it if it made the place more sellable but no one is really banging the hardwood drum here. I am surprised - I thought people would be saying hardwood all the way. Just shows it’s important to ask.

[philv]

Currently installing 18mm solid oak flooring.
Glued down.
Looks great.
Scotia solid oak as well looks nice.

Not the easiest thing to install.

I'd go with engineered oak flooring for a flat.
Say 6mm solid oak with a plywood backing.
Much quicker to install.
Still sandable.

[milesgiles]

philv said:

Currently installing 18mm solid oak flooring.
Glued down.
Looks great.
Scotia solid oak as well looks nice.

Not the easiest thing to install.

I'd go with engineered oak flooring for a flat.
Say 6mm solid oak with a plywood backing.
Much quicker to install.
Still sandable.

I have a nuisance tenant asking for a parquet floor instead of carpet. The answer is no, but out of interest how much would that be compared to carpet? Double? More?

[LennyM1984]

milesgiles said:

I have a nuisance tenant asking for a parquet floor instead of carpet. The answer is no, but out of interest how much would that be compared to carpet? Double? More?

Easily double I would think. A basic, passable carpet can be had from £8 a sqm + underlay at say £3 a sqm. The cheapest engineered wood floors start at around £30 a sqm...

(...and yes, I have spent far too much time over the past 12 months researching, buying and fitting different types of flooring as part of our house reno)

ETA: I also think the "Parquet" trend is beginning to look a little passe - every single new build home now has parquet style LVT flooring

Edited by LennyM1984 on Monday 1st September 10:22

[PhilboSE]

milesgiles said:

philv said:

Currently installing 18mm solid oak flooring.
Glued down.
Looks great.
Scotia solid oak as well looks nice.

Not the easiest thing to install.

I'd go with engineered oak flooring for a flat.
Say 6mm solid oak with a plywood backing.
Much quicker to install.
Still sandable.

I have a nuisance tenant asking for a parquet floor instead of carpet. The answer is no, but out of interest how much would that be compared to carpet? Double? More?

True parquet would be fiendishly expensive as it’s made out of small, thick blocks individually fixed. They probably mean they want herringbone style LVT or engineered wood.

I’d tell them to FRO until they knew what they were asking for, exactly. Then tell them to FRO again.

[ChevronB19]

milesgiles said:

I have a nuisance tenant asking for a parquet floor instead of carpet. The answer is no, but out of interest how much would that be compared to carpet? Double? More?

Proper parquet? As in the stuff that was installed in Victorian homes, schools, gyms etc?

A bloody fortune.

Our 1820 farmhouse has it (from new) - proper stuff, and lasts.

For a refurb? Only if you get a cheap deal on *proper* parquet, and it will take ages to lay/bed down, and you’d need a proper expert to do it.

[TVR Sagaris]

If you're selling it, OP, I wouldn't bother with real wood. I can't see any way that the cost would be justified and my suspicion is that most people wouldn't have a clue whether a floor is wood or laminate anyway.

But as said above, carpets seem to be unfashionable with younger people (I'm not sure why) so if that's your target market then it probably makes sense to go with something that looks like wood.

[Shnozz]

LVT.

There was a discussion on another thread re carpet v solid floors. My Mrs is Scandinavian and despises carpets as unhygienic and I can see her point. It's also generally less fashionable in these times.

I also think wood effect can give the impression of a greater space which would be useful to sell a place. Any lack of warmth or impracticalities can be overlooked if its being flogged on, regardless of your own preferences.