Living Room Flooring in Leeds

Victorian front rooms, Edwardian herringbone and West Park

11.8% of Leeds dwellings were built before 1900, below the 15.5% for England and Wales. For the living room of a period house the guide on board widths is precise: solid or engineered boards of moderate width, brushed, because that width matches the skirting, the doors and the fireplace. That is why the guide does not reach for the widest plank in a Victorian front room.

6.1% of Leeds dwellings date from 1900 to 1918, and the Edwardian front room has a floor of its own in our living rooms guide: herringbone, whose pattern gives the eye somewhere to go in a large room with a fireplace. The West Park appraisal describes a planned Edwardian suburb laid out between the Ordnance Survey maps of 1892 and 1906, and its living rooms are the kind that suit either answer.

The through-lounge, the family room and the let

Later houses ask something else. 7.1% of Leeds dwellings were built from 1973 to 1982, below the 8.9% for England and Wales. A Victorian front room and a through-lounge of that era ask different things of a floor, so it is worth knowing which kind of room you are flooring before choosing a board.

28.2% of Leeds households have dependent children, against 28.4% for England and Wales. In a family home the living room is the easiest room to floor. Almost anything works there, as long as the hallway catches the grit before it gets that far.

Rented living rooms follow the rentals guide. 26.0% of Leeds households rent privately, and in a let the living room counts among the dry rooms where laminate is a reasonable choice, alongside bedrooms and landings.

Winter gaps in a Leeds wood floor

The mean daily temperature in January in central Leeds is 4.7 degrees in the Met Office's 1991 to 2020 average, against a median of 4.8 across the 151 towns. Through those months the heating runs, and heating dries the air. The boards of a wood floor give up some of their moisture and shrink slightly, so fine gaps can open at the joints.

Summer brings the moisture back, the boards take it up and the gaps close again. In a wood living room floor that is normal behaviour, not a fault, and it is worth knowing before the first winter rather than during it.