On 24/11/2014 09:26, Tim Watts wrote:

Bare floorboards with a rectangle of carpet that stops short of all
sides by 6-12" and does not go into the alcoves.

The boards are either dry and bare, or varnished.

No boards visible on our set-up, we had a strip of lino running from
the wall to the edge of the carpet.

I remember sweeping the edge foot or so:lino(hands and knees with a
hand brush and dustpan) on that sort of set-up in the 60s/early70s
(just a sprog not born till '62 so the 50s are a mystery to me).