Flooring for Thornbury's Bungalows

A Californian bungalow on stumps has almost always moved. Restumping, settling and a hundred years of seasonal change leave a subfloor that is rarely flat, and that is the single thing most likely to turn a straightforward flooring job into a preparation job.

Check it with a straightedge before choosing a product. Lay it in any direction and look for a gap underneath. If a whole room fails, the preparation is the bigger half of the work and worth pricing before you commit to a colour.

The compensation is that these houses have generous rooms and good light, which suits a wide plank. A more rigid 9mm board bridges minor undulation better than 7mm over this kind of subfloor.

Bungalows come with things a new house does not: deep skirtings, picture rails, leadlight, and often a fireplace surround that sets the tone of the room.

Two practical notes. First, colour looks different against warm period joinery than it does in a showroom — take free samples home and look at them in the actual room at different times of day. Second, plan the transition where new flooring meets original boards or hearth tiles before you order, because the height difference is easier to design around than to fix.

Thornbury is 5.9 kilometres from our warehouse at Unit 48, 2 Cobham St, Reservoir. In-stock product can be collected the day you buy it, at no delivery charge, and a forklift is available for larger orders.

Book the collection ahead so the stock is picked and ready. There is no minimum order — a single box is a perfectly normal thing to buy, which matters if you are finishing a room or replacing damaged boards.

If collecting does not suit, we deliver throughout Victoria, charged on destination, distance and the order.

We install across Victoria, and our installation service covers flooring supplied by Square Flooring. One company owning both the product and the workmanship means a problem has one owner rather than two parties pointing at each other.

Installations carry a workmanship warranty, separate from the manufacturer's product warranty on the flooring itself.

Subfloor preparation, removal of existing floor coverings, waste removal, stairs, door trimming and scotia are quoted as separate lines rather than folded into a square-metre rate.