We have a small bedroom in a 1936 terraced house in north London. we have
decided to go for a new fitted carpet with a natural material underlay. (not
rubber underlay, which we suspect might deteriorate after ten or fifteen
years or so).

The wooden flooring has gaps pretty much all over up to roughly 5 cm where
the boards have shrunk over the years. with a few places with some shortish
strips up
to 1 cm wide, where the wood has been damaged at some point, probably we
guess before
laying them down.

We thought we would go for the most basic carpet from john Lewis with a
Hessian backing. It's about £20 sq metre. (we know the rubber back underlay
deteriorate because the carpet we pulled up and threw out was like a mass of
decayed bread crumbs underneath). John Lewis's felt underlay is £4.45 sq
metre, their basic carpet is £20 a square metre and the fitting charge is
£4.65 a square metre, since I don't think I could fit it myself.

Does all this sound a reasonable choice? And what please is it best to do
about the gaps between the floor boards especially the larger ones? Since I
would like to sort out the gaps in my own time before the carpet actually
arrives. Thanks for any advice.