Victorian Pine Floorboards
Victorian pine floorboards
Victorian pine flooring is one of our best selling products, with most of the purchases ending up in local areas of London such as Hackney and Islington. Our larger orders, of 30+ square meters are normally used for loft conversions and extensions when home owners need to match in with the existing original antique wood flooring. We also get many smaller orders of 4 or 5 square meters which are normally related to repairs due to water damage, or an uncaring plumber who has cut a trench right through the centre of a original 7 inch Victorian pine floor to save some time when fixing a leak. We stock most sizes of Victorian boards so can normally get our customers out of trouble by providing a matching floorboard or two when needed.
A rare commodity
Sourcing Victorian pine floorboards in London is becoming a difficult task, which seems to be due to a number of factors; in particular, an increase in demand for returning the original features to Victorian properties as home owners replace the items that were removed during the minimalism trend. There has also been a loss of potential sources of stock due to the huge numbers of homes destroyed in the Blitz and the wide scale demolition of Victorian housing in the 1950s to make way for high density council housing (not to mention that there is very little that is being recycled when these dated 1950s tower blocks are being demolished).
Floorboard widths vs. price
There is a premium on wider 6 inch + Victorian boards, which are most often found in the early Victorian villas of Chelsea, Hackney and Islington, and these tend to be more difficult to come by. It is very difficult to find good examples of the wider original pine flooring for under £35 a square meter. The narrower 3 inch to 5 inch wooden floorboards from late Victorian and Edwardian properties that used to be quite common 5 or 6 years ago are now becoming scarce as well, which has pushed the current 2016 prices of these boards past the £30 mark due to high demand for use in the original upper working class Victorian terraced housing that seems to be the main 19th century housing stock of newly desirable areas of London such as Bow and Brick Lane.
Spotting good floorboards
When purchasing reclaimed floorboards you have to remember not to expect a lorry to arrive with a perfect square block of cut, clean floorboards in a nice shrink wrapped package. A good reclaimed flooring supplier will de-nail and cut any broken ends off of the board, but will not sand or clean the flooring before delivery; this is to preserve the patina. The beauty of high quality original Victorian floor boards is found in the patina which is impossible to re-create on the new B&Q type wood flooring, and it is this patina that you will adjust with sanding and finishing to match your existing floor or to create just the right look for your new (old) wooden floor.
Our reclaimed pine flooring stock can be found here: reclaimed pine flooring If you have any questions or require any help with restoring your current Victorian wooden floor please get in touch via our contact page.