Floor restoration

Hello,

We live in a small semi-detached terrace in <st1:City><st1:place>Sydney</st1:place></st1:City>. There are two rooms upstairs that are currently carpeted which we would like to change to wooden floors. Under the carpet is a big mess. Some original floor boards in various states, some plywood panels, some mdf panels and what looks like some modern unfinished pine floor boards. Bits have been cut out of the old floor boards and replaced (I reckon this was done to wire up smoke alarms in the downstairs ceilings). The whole thing is uneven, creaky and has a few holes along the edges where various patches of ply and mdf dont quite reach the walls. I've cut a few holes here and there to have a look at the bearers and they look solid and level but Im no expert

We have a few restriction to work around
1) Space - I cant empty both rooms at the same time and we need to sleep in one of these two rooms

2) Misses is up the duff so we wont to keep her away from dust and chemicals from finishes etc. I can pack her off to her sisters for a few days though.

3) $$$$ - wont to do it myself

I can see a few options

1) Work to reinforce the existing floor and attempt to rough sand to level then install floating floor. This seems a good possibility but would involve dealing with the dust from the sanding which could be a bit nasty from the MDF

2) Remove all existing flooring and lay prefinished boards on the bearers. Seems a good option as the prefinished floor boards dont need sanding and finishing but I think any tiny unevenness in the bearers would be very obvious and require sanding and refinishing

3) Remove all existing flooring and lay mdf / ply subfloor followed by floating floor.

4) Remove all existing floor, install new unfinished boards have them sanded and finished - this would be hard without removing all the furniture and basically moving out for a week

Any suggestions (including telling me Im mad) greatly appreciated

Hi Josh

That doesn't really sound like a quick, easy job! :) I would remove what's there and put down yellow tongue chipboard flooring covered by new solid timber flooring.

But as you say the less invasive way would be a pre-finnished product.

How far a long is your wife because that cetainly can be a significant, additional challenge when doing this sort of thing.

She's only two months so still pretty mobile. It'll be at least a month before I can start on this though.

I was poking around on the net and came across another option. Nail down 10mm battens, say 80mm wide through existing floor into bearers, wedged and packed as necessary to get a good level then lay prefinished floor boards over that nailing through battens and into bearers. This seems like a good option but it would make the last step on the stair case noticeably higher than the other steps. If I was to go this route what kind of timber would you suggest for the battens?

I was going to suggest that but I thought it would be an issue with a step going into the room.

Hardwood battens would make for a better attachment of the boards but you may get away with pine? If you are going to use pre-finnished product they probably have guidlines on their websites. Plenty of people lay battens over cement slabs for timber floors.

If you are happy with prefinished timber or bamboo then battens is probably the easiest, cleanest option.

Thank you very much, Ill let you know how it all turns out