Sanding floorboards - Can I just remove the carpets and sand the old pine floorboards?

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When we moved into our 1930s house renovation there were a load of crappy old carpets in every room, the kind that were so old that when you picked them up they would dissolve like a baddy in the film ‘The Mummy’.

The very first thing that we did when we got the keys was lift a corner of every carpet to see what we were playing with underneath. Thankfully we inherited some lovely pine floorboards underneath. Ever since that moment, we wanted to get rid of the hellish carpets ASAP…

In our last Victorian basement flat we had real oak floorboards and they were just lovely, creating a rustic warmth that is nigh impossible to achieve with modern materials. So the opportunity to do something similar was enticing.

So we threw out the carpets (literally out of the window) and what we found first was really quite surprising; we discovered a whole load of old newspapers dating back to before WW2. We were the second owners of this 1930s built house so this ‘underlay’ at least was 90 years old (read the whole post here).

You see, back then carpet fitters didn’t use that spongy underlay we see today, they very regularly re-used the broadsheet newspaper that they were reading in the days before fitting. And in doing this, they created a fantastic time capsule for two Brightonians in the 21st century 👷🏻‍♀️👷🏻‍♂️!

We carefully removed the newspapers for later ‘historical research purposes’ and underneath were some floorboards in fairly good condition.

Because we were still working on our plan for the house, we didn’t know what we were going to do with the place and we wanted to make the place liveable. We wondered if we could sand the floors to give them a better look for the time being. At the time it was cheaper than any other option, so in a couple of rooms we did just that.

One of the first bits of work on the house we did was a quick, cheap (but v. basic) makeover of the guest bedroom to make a renovation bunker/hideaway from the dust. This is after the floors were sanded (not a bad result), but note the gap under the skirting (more on this below):

In hindsight, the look of the boards was OK but the practicality was awful. The problem with some UK houses is that many tend to have softwood (pine) which aren’t really designed for exposure and don’t really fare well with use, i.e. it’s easily dented by furniture etc.

Another problem is that the boards aren’t very close together so the appearance is a bit ‘gappy’ and there is a tendency for drafts.

And because the boards were destined to be covered by carpet – and old newspapers! – you’ll generally find that there are large gaps between the skirting board and the floorboards (and the door too) which is a little untidy to look at and again, drafty.

Some do try to paint pine floorboards but this can lead to a disappointing result since the paint can lodge between the boards (making uneven gaps) plus highlight the poor condition of the wood. Others use products like Bona Gap Filler, but there’s never a good match.

The last room that we had pine boards on display in was our home office. Wheeling around on gappy, soft pine floorboards very much sucked day-in day-out. We found that it was splitting at the edges, and since we’ve had good quality laminate installed we truly haven’t looked back.

The look, finish and colour is much more subtle and classy.

If you’re thinking about trying to make a saving right now, sanding old pine floorboards might seem like a quick win but keep in mind that if you’re working with softwood like pine, it’s usually just a temporary measure and over time, it becomes pretty impractical.

We always advocate investing in a proper long term solutions straight off the bat if you can afford to – especially if your investment prevents your home feeling drafty and doesn’t compromise the finish of your interior.

We have so many messages come in about the flooring we chose throughout the house, so if you’re interested in seeing what we laid over the pinewood floors years later, have a read of these posts:

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Neil