To ask what floor you’d have?

[Merryoldgoat]

I have a fairly big living room - it’s 5.5m x 7m and not super bright so needs to be light in colour.

I currently have a white oak effect laminate. It was put in fairly cheaply (we did it ourselves) because the house was in such a state when we moved in and we had to get rid of the 20yo baggy carpet.

It’s our only living space and I have two autistic boys - it needs to be hard wearing.

We are considering:

Porcelain - we have porcelain in hall and kitchen but it’s cold and needs lots of cleaning. Looks amazing but I’m not sure it’s practical

Solid Wood - warmer but is it hard to look after? I’ve never had solid wood floor but I love how it looks.

Luxury Vinyl (Karndean etc) - practical and warm but I don’t know how lasting it is - younger child drags furniture around all the time - would it get easily damaged?

Polished Concrete - looks beautiful but hard and cold and maybe looks like a hotel? Also very expensive.

What do we think? I really want something that will last a long time and I’m not averse to area rugs in places to improve comfort.

any advice very welcome.

I had 60s style parquet in my last house. It was warmer and softer than tiles and easy to clean. It did scratch a little from sand that was on the wheels of toddler ride on toys and dining chairs. its a 'busy' pattern so it didnt matter plus you can sand and seal it again.

Lvt all the way. Warm, easy to keep clean, hard wearing. Ours has been down about 5 years now and looks like new (and that's in the hall, the highest traffic area of the whole house)!

I’d have porcelain with underfloor heating. You could get a wood effect if you like the wood look. Good ones are hard to distinguish from the real thing to look at. Or, and this is what I’m going to go for- natural slate with underfloor heating.

Solid wood is easy to look after as long as you arent going to freak out about scratches and dings from the kids driving cars on the floor or dropping heavy toys. Maybe vinyl?

Solid wood isn’t that hard to look after. You can get it all sanded and varnished again. We loved ours and its never cold.

We have Karndean, not in living room, but in bedroom and ensuite, bathroom, amd kitchen dinner. We had new ensuite and it was removed and relaced with identical (wood effect with a border), you literally can't tell the difference between the new and the 1992 laid one it sits beside in the bedroom. We love it.

Ok thank you everyone - sounds like wood or karndean are the best idea