Karndean flooring / Practical flooring

[Misswales1]

Hi Ladies!

Im looking for some advice / ideas. Redoing house and thinking of putting karndean in the open-plan kitchen/lounge also in hall and office, possibly bathrooms too.

It's a hardworking farmhouse, therefore flooring has to be super practical and easy to maintain.

Your opinions greatly appreciated & suggestions of alternatives!

Ta!

[Dobbylugs]

Karndean is the one to have. It has a very hard life here and still not a mark on it. Easy to clean, no signs of wear at all and it looks fab. My parents were so impressed they have got it too and they have people and dogs in and out all day in the countryside.

[Legwarmersforboys]

Love mine too

[Bert2e]

Love ours too! I'd love to get rid of the tiles we have in the kitchen / dining room and replace them with Karndean but we need to win the lottery first!

[YeOldeTrout]

Our metal barstools scratched our Karndean badly. Just saying that it can be damaged, we are getting new Karndean and will treat it much more kindly.

[GreyBird84]

We have it in the bathroom & love it!

[Gozogozo]

Ask lots of questions about specific karndean fitting experience of your assigned fitter if from a flooring company.
Amtico, polyflor, karndean - all are similar & all live or die by the initial fitting. The newer individual tiles top end range is adjustable, I gather, but substantially more expensive.
Ask your friends about their experiences with the flooring & if they would recommend the flooring company AND/OR its fitters.

[Gozogozo]

Also although Karndean is frequently referred to as bombproof and steam able on here, it isn't really, if you want to rely on the warranty. You need to have karndean recommended protectors on all chairs, table legs etc & use their cleaner or another ph neutral one, all of which is costly. And won't protect the floor if anything heavy is dragged across it or stiletto heels poke into it.

ps I don't have any answers or better alternative other than tiles, just frustrated by a recent terrible experience through the house.

[YeOldeTrout]

Friend gasped at our floor "I didn't think you could DO THAT to Karndean!"
I'll look up protectors, now.

[Gozogozo]

They're on amazon.

[YeOldeTrout]

yeah, Thx, I see them online.... I was thinking I will try to buy them from a real shop, if possible. (not sure what real shop would sell them, though!)

[Misswales1]

Thanks muchly guys.

Im just been living with the ex-wife's amtico and salmon pink carpet for a looooong time - anything will be an upgrade!! ????

Never heard of the protectors before & to be fair to the amtico in the kitchen it's had some hellish abuse and still looking no too bad.

I'd really like a slate/ stone floor but totally fear the maintenance!

The karndean palio is what i've seen looks decent value but not sure as it's do new what the general consensus is.

[YeOldeTrout]

My best floor ever was quarry tiles & they didn't seem to need any special maintenance.

[SqueezyCheeseWeasel]

Amtico is more expensive than Karndean!

[ReadtheSmallPrint]

We have Polyflor in our hall (fitted by a commercial floor fitter who was a 'mate' of our builder).

It's fantastic.

[lovingmatleave]

AMtico spacia or Moduleo are two other options. first one the cheaper range of amtico but still more expensive than karndean. The other one apparently is just as good as Karndean and lots of people are buying it! That was the view I got from my recent trawls of flooring shops. We ended up with a.spacia and are very happy with it.

www.moduleo.co.uk

[chrisg190974]

There's much better products on the market than karndean. I've been installing LVT for about 19 years now. Karndean used to be a great product but there standards have dropped since moving production to china.

I now advise any customer not to have karndean and to look at better options. Lvt is a really good option for the home as it is so practical.

I've wrote a few helpful tips here on choosing a new floor for your kitchen.

www.decadesignflooring.co.uk/blog/picking-the-perfect-floor-for-your-kitchen

[AboutTimeIChangedMyNameAgain]

We've had Karndean in our kitchen diner area and it's brilliant.

[Only1scoop]

Hi Op we have karndean art select the large planks in a very dark finish.

We have this in hall downstairs loo and lounge which is really long. I love the effect of it down. However I will stress that although hard wearing it scratches surprisingly easily. So be careful with any furniture you put on it which needs to be moved etc.