Living room/kitchen flooring.

[Mmmcheese89]

Help me decide what flooring to choose. Ideas also welcome.

I'm effectively in a 2 up 2 down terrace. Good sized living room to the front in deep rich burgundy and navy tones, equal sized dining kitchen to the back in light sage and white. I love dark vintage furniture and am currently compiling parts to create a free standing kitchen. Wooden ercol sofa, big old charm Welsh dresser etc.

I want the same flooring to run all through the downstairs. I want tile for practicalities. I'd like natural material effect though, so wood/stone/terracotta. But I can't work out what will match both rooms. I'm concerned going for wood effect tiles will be too much wood. But also that stone or terracotta may be too harsh looking in the living room...

Any advice welcome, or even a virtual slap to get over myself.

I'm not a fan of tiles in living rooms as I think if feels cold/harsh. Our last house was a (small) converted mill and the room we chose as our dining space had Victorian quarry tiles in black/red which dated from when the conversion was done.

These were also in part of the kitchen (we opened up the Victorian dining room into the new kitchen) where they looked fine. But in the new dining room, not so much - even with a huge rug covering the majority. We eventually laid wood flooring over the dining room quarries, leaving the tiles untouched underneath in case a future owner should want to reveal them.

If you were going to paint your freestanding kitchen pieces, a wooden floor would look lovely and you could run that throughout, but as I presume you intend to keep them as nature intended, wooden floors might - as you say - be too much wood.

I think that in your position, I'd just have different flooring in the living room (wood) with a cosy rug and go for tiles/stone in the kitchen/diner.

Look at COREtec, closest to wood like you can get, range of colours, warm and waterproof. It’s a floating floor so you don’t need the floor screeded either.

Depending how you feel about a chequerboard floor (I love them), something like this?

https://www.stonesuperstore.co.uk/townhouse-black-porcelain-tiles

I do think checkerboard would be too much for the space. Lovely though.

Considering something like the attached? Deep reddy browns, but a different texture than a wood effect tile.

The cold feeling was why I was initially planning a wood effect tile... Why is it so damn difficult?!?!?

I think wood would look lovely with both - perhaps reclaimed boards if you have anywhere near you that sells them. Our kitchen has an old parquet floor reclaimed from a sports hall and it is beautiful

What about hybrid flooring throughout downstairs, it's waterproof so will be fine in the kitchen. I wouldn't go for tiles, I live in Australia where it is pretty common and they look and feel cold in living rooms, don't look great with living room furniture and go in and out of fashion pretty quickly.

I have massive concrete flagstones in my kitchen - I wouldn't recommend them. I have a seating area (TV and settee for when you don't want to be in the living room) in the kitchen that has a rug to separate it off, so don't forget you can do that in the living room. The floor is cold without underfloor heating, hence the rugs, and why my living room has wood.

I wonder if some kind of slate would work - has the dark for the living room, and hints of green for the kitchen. Could be natural slate if you're feeling brave (and wear slippers/have underfloor heating), or I've seen some very good slate-look laminate (probably available in vinyl these days too for a 100% waterproof kitchen).

Initially I wanted the same floor throughout, but the I though too much wood-look would make the place a bit too meh. And albeit I love terracotta, we are not in a Terracotta Villa, so it would feel too cold and harsh in the living room. So we are going for hallway tiles, wood-like LVT in the living room and terracotta tiles in the kitchen/dining. Look at tones that would transition without major drama. So same warm undertone and it will look great!