can laminate look like real wood?

[pellmell]

I have a double fronted period cottage.
We have stone tiles from the front entrance hall and throughout kitchen/utility.
I would like to finish off the ground floor by updating it a bit and making it look cleaner.

The sitting room has carpet (old smelly and pink )
The other room is used as a playroom and recently been done in a very cheap looking wood (very piney looking)

As we don't intend to move for years and have no spare cash I wondered if a wooden look can be achieved cheaply and fitted by a fairly competant dh

Any idea how much we would do this for ?????
both rooms are about 20ftsq

[KatieDD]

I've just got quotes today for top of the range laminate with grooves, £17 psm the real wood alternative was £38 psm so we're laminating, it was very convincing.
www.bhkuniclic.com/home.htm

[MinkyBorage]

I think that real wood can look like laminate, but not convinced the other way around. I don't like that very flat look though anyway so perhaps I'm not the best person to answer this question. Don't have any suggestions for you though, but it seems like such a pity to put laminate flooring over stone tiles, unless they're horrible??
Good luck, hope you like the end result whatever, that's all that really matters.

[lalalonglegs]

It doesn't look like real wood. It's too uniform, the colour doesn't mellow with age, it just looks grubby, if it gets wet it will peel. The only thing laminate has going for it is that it is much easier to lay than real wood so, if you are really keen, you could do it yourself. Personally, I don't think it would look great in a period cottage - I would probably use some rugs to deflect attention from current flooring for the time being and save up if I possibly could.

[LynetteScavo]

it can look like wood (in a photo) but it can't feel like wood, IYSWIM.

[pellmell]

thanks everyone.
Another thing we need to condider is how cold the rooms get. There is no cavity in the walls.