Our experience of fitting wooden flooring ourselves

[Advertisement – this post is a collaboration with Quick-Step but, as always, words and opinions are my own]

One of the biggest decisions when renovating the upstairs of our house was flooring. We’d already redone most of the ground floor, but the bedrooms were still covered in the old brown carpet that was here when we bought the property in 2014. There never seemed much point changing it as we always knew we’d be moving doorways and walls to create a new bathroom at some point, but it really was an eyesore – tatty, increasingly coffee-stained, and beginning to unravel around the edges. I couldn’t wait to rip it out as soon as the building work was done, and I’d long dreamed of laying pale oak flooring – the perfect fit for my understated Scandinavian style – in its place. But with a rapidly dwindling budget, we didn’t think our funds would allow.

We looked at countless other options, but nothing was quite right. We briefly considered a new carpet but couldn’t find any we liked (in any case, the cat and my tendency to spill things mean it wouldn’t have lasted very long!), and we explored the possibility of repairing the original Victorian boards before realising it would have made the bedrooms incredibly cold and draughty. We just couldn’t get the thought of oak out of our heads, so we were delighted when flooring specialist Quick-Step offered us the chance to try out something from their range. And to save money on the installation, we decided to take the plunge and fit it ourselves – something that’s totally doable thanks to Quick-Step’s ‘Uniclic Multifit’ system, which means each board slots together without the need for any glue.

Quick-Step has been manufacturing flooring since the 1960s and has a fantastic collection, covering everything from laminate and vinyl to wood. I ordered a selection of samples to help us choose exactly the right one (it’s always worth testing things out in situ if you can), and we eventually settled on ‘Palazzo’ hardwood flooring in ‘Polar Oak’. It has a subtle white stain that gives it a light, airy look without detracting from the natural beauty of the grain, and it’s neither too cool nor too warm. It’s also treated with a matt lacquer, which I personally think gives a much more refined and contemporary effect than glossier finishes.

Once the flooring arrived, the actual installation was fairly quick and easy. We started with the guest bedroom (a full reveal of which is coming soon), as it made sense to get used to what we were doing in the smaller of the two spaces. Preparing the surface and fitting the underlay didn’t take long at all, and we were ready to lay the boards within a couple of hours. We soon got into a rhythm of Chris measuring and cutting them and me clicking them into place, and we ended up covering the whole room in less than a day; the larger main bedroom, meanwhile, took a day and a half. The only tricky bits were the edges. You need to leave a 15mm gap around wooden flooring to allow for slight expansion and contraction as heat and humidity levels change, so you can either hide this with scotia trim or do what we did – remove the skirting boards, lay the flooring and fit the skirting back on top so that it covers the gap. Our skirting proved difficult to get off the wall and we ended up causing a bit of damage that we had to repair with filler afterwards, but it was worth it for the seamless finish. It also means we don’t have scotia getting in the way of furniture legs – something that’s particularly important in the guest bedroom, where space is tight and every centimetre counts!

The flooring has now been in place for a couple of months and we’re so happy with it. It works perfectly with the calming, neutral decor, and it adds the kind of Scandinavian vibe we wanted without looking out of place in our 1901 house. What’s more, it’s beautifully smooth underfoot and very easy to keep clean – and, because of the quality of the hardwood and the underlay, the room as a whole feels warm, cosy and no more echoey than it did before.

So, would we fit our own wooden flooring again? Definitely. We were a bit daunted by the prospect, but it turned out to be very achievable and far less of a hassle than I’d imagined. We both enjoyed learning a new skill, and it’s one I’m sure we’ll put to good use in the future – in this instance Quick-Step supplied the flooring as a PR product, but as we move on to other areas of the house we won’t hesitate to free up budget for better-quality materials by handling as much of the installation as we can.

If you’re thinking about having a go at laying wooden flooring yourself, here are a few top tips to bear in mind:

• Measure the space carefully (including any alcoves etc) to ensure you order enough flooring, and don’t forget to allow 10-15% extra for wastage
• Store the new flooring in the room where it will be laid for 48 hours or so before fitting, to allow it to acclimatise to the temperature and humidity levels
• Make sure you have a dry, clean and level surface to lay the flooring on. If it’s going on top of existing floorboards then you’ll need to fix any wobbly ones and ensure there are no nails sticking out
• Always fit an underlay that’s appropriate for the type of flooring, the surface it’s going on and the amount of traffic the room gets – not only will it provide acoustic and thermal insulation, it will also level out any minor unevenness
• Before installing the flooring itself, take time to read up on how to do it, and how to deal with any tricky features such as door frames, fireplaces and radiator pipes – it’s much better than trying to work it out as you go along!
• You also need to decide which direction to lay the flooring in. The general rule is to fit the boards in the same direction as the main light source, but you can play around with this to accentuate or counteract the room’s size

Quick-Step has lots of resources to help, including FAQs, video tutorials and step-by-step guides, but if you’ve got any questions about our experience then let me know in the comments below and I’ll try my best to answer. And don’t worry if you’d prefer to get a professional to fit things for you, as you’ll find a list of Quick-Step approved installers here.

All photography by Abi Dare