Kitchen Diner flooring

[SorrelForbes]

We've nearly finished building a7m x 8m extension to house the kitchen/diner. In the rest of the house we've retained the existing floorboards (sanded and stained teak and then given a high gloss finish) but we're a bit stuck on what to do about flooring in the new space. The whole house has quite a MCM feel and I'm bit wary of using something like Karndean in case it doesn't fit with the rest of the house.

The room is north facing and will have a sloped roof. To try and maximise light we're having three velux windows, white walls/tiles and only having base units in the kitchen part (F&B Hartford Blue)

I'm keen to just lay floorboards and give them a very neutral white oil type finish. DH doesn't think this will be hardwearing enough, especially considering that the room will get a lot of traffic.

A tiled floor throughout would probably be too cold (we're not having under floor heating) and I've not seen any kitchen diners that I like where the floor type changes between the two spaces.

Any ideas would be most appreciated!

I put in real wood floorboards in my kitchen/ dining / living area.
Big mistake.
The boards are well marked and they haven't had a whole lot of traffic.
If I was doing it again I would put in Karndean, Amtico or similar.

What's MCM?

Mid-century modern.

Floggingmolly Sorry, Mid Century Modern. It's a 1950s house and we've tried to give a 'nod' to the era with the décor and furnishings.

makushla I had a feeling someone would agree with DH! . Any suggestions about type, colour?

Drawing of the kitchen area (the units are a greyer blue than in this picture!)

I have the original oak wooden floorboards in my kitchen, however I had them sanded and varnished with industrial varnish so no scratches, no wear and tear. Not my fave to be honest, but it's listed and I didn't want to cover them up. If you do it have them done professionally otherwise you will struggle to maintain.

What's industrial varnish?

Really, really resilient, less likely to scratch varnish. We have the same on pine floor boards, and it doesn't scratch but the wood has rented a bit in places through heels etc.

We've just had Harvey Maria tiles put in our kitchen/utility room and it's lovely. Bright, warm under foot, easy to clean, pretty much indestructible.

Thank you for the suggestions/warnings!

We're going to have to lay new boards before we put any other flooring on top so we've got a bit of time to have a think about this. I wondering whether a patterned vinyl tile (like the Harvery Maria ones) would be better than going for a fake floorboard effect?

We went for the Dee Hardwicke Harvey Maria tiles as we have wood downstairs and didn't want pretend next to it.

Yep, that's the way I'm leaning at the moment!

We have engineered oak - similar sized extension, been down about 8 months. Lovely, hasn't marked (despite 3 children and masses of footfall - we practically live in there). Not cold under foot, looks real (as it should!) and doesn't detract from other focal points (have similar kitchen but in charcoal with beautiful work top!).

I wouldn't ever ever have tiles (inherited tiles with house and lived with them for 5 years before extension, hated them with a passion) and I don't really like any of the Amtico/ Karndean/ LVF options.

namechangedtoday15 It's a bit of a relief to hear you say that as I spent much of yesterday looking for tiles and hated everything!

I think it's either going to have to be engineered wood or real floor boards (and to hell with the marking!).