Hi jdublya, happy new year and sorry about the late reply! I ended up doing the safe / lazy thing... left the floor untouched and painted a feature wall deep grey, as well as having two-toned grey curtains to both the sliding doors, and a dark grey area rug. The open plan living / dining gets lots of light, so it's still bright even with all the dark greys. We've paired it with mismatched sofas in light grey and brown, and sage green throws. Overall, it's still a "warm" look and not the cool Scandi look I would have preferred, but it's cozy and the greys have really calmed down the red. It's a lot more to my taste now than the show room furniture was. Bits of the floor finish are coming off though, I think (where the kitchen island stools have been dragged over the years by the past occupant), so in time I will get the opportunity to re-do the floor and it'll no longer be red!

we have decided to go with concrete floors in our new build. the foundations have just been done, and the team came through and power floated the floor. It rained the next day, which showed us the full effect of what the floor will look like (the builder said its good for it to rain too as means less likely to crack) and we LOVE it! so much so that i rang the builder and asked him to be careful on the hallway floor too as we want to continue the concrete finish up there as well. We arnt going for a ground floor as i find it a bit too busy and we are wanting a more relaxed industrial look. This is the photo i supplied the builder and it looks pretty much the same. The finish is achieved as soon as concrete foundation is poured. they "buff" the concrete, which "burns" the top, giving it quite a organic look. once this is done, the floor needs to be protected from chips etc while they build, then all that needs to be done is sealing once the build is finished. it came in alot cheaper than tile, or wood, but more expensive than carpet. our house is north facing with a lot of glass on that wall. the architect told us that the thermal mass from the flooring will be awesome! keep us updated on what you choose. :)

Hi Badobbs Structafloor will only span 600mm unsupported in the 22mm and 450mm in the 19mm version so no, it alone won't fix your issue. A simple fix would be to pull up the floor in the affected area and then 'pack' it up to level, THEN lay some structaflor over the new supported sub floor. This is done by getting a laser level and marking out the low points in the joists then making up packers to suit, or installing a packer and planing it down to suit. It depends on the level of dipping. It will be your cheapest option and definitely a job for your carpenter (unless you're handy). Regarding disturbing the floorboards that is nonsense. If there are other issues such as other sagging floorboards then you can address them at the same time, or fix them down properly with screws. I suspect that the real issue is that the wall removal did not take into account that the floor joists are usually fixed to it and they are now unsupported. If you get under there and find issues with your joists/bearers then it is not a big deal to install a couple of stumps/connect bearers to support them whilst it is open. We do it all the time. Either way laying a new floor over a subfloor without addressing it would be a waste of money and will degrade your new floor. Cheers

it was very common years ago to have floorboards on front porches. the boards were always run from front to back to allow water to run off each board individually. there needs to be adequate fall on the subfloor to ensure water does not sit on the timber if it wet. the timber itself is fine to use outside, it would be a good idea to cut off the tongue and groove then it really is not too different to decking. I would suggest leaving it outside to acclimatise for a few weeks before installing and depending on the width of the board, the gaps must be suitable for the species.