Please tell me about your kitchen floor

[Barbararara]

We’re planning a new kitchen and I have no idea what kind of floor to pick.

Currently we have tiles that hide a certain amount of dirt but on the other hand never really look clean either. And we just pretend that the white grouting is supposed to be that shade of manky grey.

Everything looks fabulous in the showroom but I’d love to hear what your floor is like to live with.

Ideally I’d like something that isn’t high maintenance.

We have grey and white patterned tiles with dark grey grout.

Also have dark grey grout on the wall tiles. It's a godsend.

We have protek. Pretend woof but v high quality. Completely waterproof and soft underfoot.

Seems good so far

Tiles that look like wood. Sound naff but are actually really nice and hide a multitude of sins. Pic below (I hope) with wine stealing baby

Pic didn't work 🤦🏼‍♀️

Old fashioned quarry tiles. No maintenance other than a whisk over with a mop every so often. The downside is that if you drop something it will shatter

I give up! They're Topps Tiles Mora Oak porcelain.

Karndean slate tiles with a 'grout' strip that isn't white.

We have tiles that look like wood in a herringbone pattern. Was a nightmare finding a joiner willing to do it but it is so worth it. Looks beautiful

*tiler not joiner

We have Camaro vinyl tiles, v similar to Kardean. They are warm under foot and very hard-wearing. We went for a light colour with a greyish pattern so dirt doesn't really show up too much at all.

We have laminate that looks like tiles but it's dark and shows every little crumb so I wouldn't recommend

Slate. We have it throughout most of downstairs apart from sitting room.
Hides the filth brilliantly

We have underfloor heating so feels lovely barefoot too.
Not a brilliant photo but you can see it here

Don't get tiles! Freezing cold and so much work. We've just ripped out our "beautiful" white gloss floor tiles. Complete nightmare to keep! The kids also cracked a few

Semi solid wood floor. It's very forgiving for hiding dirt.

We have natural slate. I hate it! I expected the surface to be rough and a little uneven, but because the thickness is uncalibrated, we have ended up with lots of “lips” where two tiles of different thicknesses meet, which hurt our feet when we tread on them. Wish we’d picked something else!

@Megan2018, yours looks so much more even than ours!

My biggest tip which you may know having it yourself is don't have white grout!

In our large kitchen we have tiles that look like wooden planks in shades of beige/grey with dark grey grout. They were expensive but are extremely hard wearing and look lovely - I hoover and mop the floor twice a week. The advantage with tiles is there’s no worries over water spills, especially as our washer/dryer is in the kitchen.

@LangittleClegabbage it sounds like yours was fitted badly-ours is uncalibrated slate but ours is perfect to walk on-it did take a lot of fitting though, our flooring person swore a lot doing it. But he ensured it was even by altering the level underneath.
We were going to have calibrated but couldn’t get the quantity in time.

Our kitchen was lino when we moved in and had so many rips and scuffs/tears, it looked terrible (and this was in a new build house that was only 4 years old when we bought it). We've just recently gone with grey porcelain tiles (which we found on clearance in homebase so got them for a very good price). Pros - Shiny, look very sleek and clean, scrub up easily and are much harder wearing than non-porcelain tiles. Cons - colder than lino and can be a little slippy, especially if you spill anh liquids on them, which out dog does when he drinks!

Unfortunately, my DH really wanted a family member to do it (who has experience of patios etc), and I’m not convinced it was done well either. Definitely not worth the slight discount we got on labour.

Your experience sounds like my suspicions were correct

Do NOT get shiny white marble tiles like we have in my new house. My family just needs to breathe in the kitchen and it needs a mop and everything smashes if dropped on it. In our last house (cunningly planned by me) we had Karndean driftwood looking floor and it was warm, things bounced more and it didn't show the dirt.

Karndean French Oak (pretty sure it's French Oak!) through most of the downstairs. Been in 6 years and still looks amazing and is soft and not cold.

This is brilliant! So much more insightful than a showroom.

@KisforKoala I’d have loved Lino when the dc were small (softer, warmer and very practical) but DH has vetoed it now.

@ineedanotherholiday Definitely no white grout!!!

@LangittleClegabbage Rough, uneven slate is exactly the sort of thing I’d be romantically drawn to, so thank you for the warning!

@Twixes is your floor protected in any way from water damage. I love wood but I’m not sure I can be trusted with it.

Loving all the wood tiles, especially the herringbone pattern. Is there much dissonance walking on it? I suppose you get used to it pretty fast.

@SunnydaysrockMy mil has karndean for about 25 years now and it still looks like new (but then she isn’t me)