Living Room Flooring in Glasgow

Front rooms in older and listed buildings

Before 1945 is the build date of an estimated 43% of dwellings in the council area, where Scotland's share is 28%. In the older houses the period homes guide covers, herringbone blocks are the parquet of the hall and the front room. If your front room is of that age, blocks are the traditional answer.

With 279 entries in Category A, Glasgow stands 2nd of 10 towns on top-grade listings; the median of the 10 towns is 35.5. Where the building is listed, altering the character of a room like the front room can require listed building consent, and taking up its original boards or blocks may be exactly such an alteration.

Listed buildings here can contain original timber floors: in 2019 Historic Environment Scotland reported wooden flooring among the original features of the Garment Factory, a former warehouse listed in Category B. Where a listing describes the inside of a building like that, the conservation officer should hear about your plans before any board is lifted.

1.7% of households live in a flat in part of a converted or shared house (Scotland: 1.6%). A living room there may sit on timber joists rather than a concrete slab, and the same floor behaves differently on each.

Gaps in a wooden floor after a Glasgow January

Glasgow's January averages 4.6 degrees in the town centre, under the 4.8 of the median town (1991 to 2020). Through the heating season the room air is dry, a timber living room floor loses a little moisture and contracts, and the joints can show fine lines. In summer the wood swells back and they disappear. That is how real wood behaves, and a living room floor chosen in autumn should be judged in spring as well.

Children, a dog and a rented living room

21.3% of Glasgow households have dependent children (Scotland: 23.5%). The family-homes guide calls the living room the easiest room in such a home: almost anything works there, provided the hallway catches the grit before it arrives.

Dogs are less common here: a median of 0.21 per household across 12 of the city's postcode districts (modelled, 2015), against 0.41 in the median of 2,737 postcode districts in Great Britain. Where there is one, runners along its routes, past the sofa and to the door, do more than a change of floor, and they can be added to a floor that is already down.

16.9% of households rent privately (Scotland: 12.9%). In a let, the living room is one of the dry rooms where the rentals guide accepts laminate as the budget answer and a reasonable one.