Has anyone bought a nice laminate recently?

[PeckaRolloverAgain]

I am looking for flooring that is cheaper than solid wood but still nice - if there is such a thing.

It is to go in kitchen and same continued into Living Room.

Kitchen is white gloss units and Walnut block work surfaces.

The living room has duck egg blue walls/ mocha wall. Brown leather sofas. Currently has stripped stained floorboards but they are a bugger to keep clean in between the boards and I want something smoother ready for baby due in December to crawl/lie on.

I was thinking of using walnut colour, but Im worried it will look too dark.

Any input would be fab!

We've just put down a laminate wood floor in the front room. It's rustic oak and was £12 a pack from Focus. It's £17 a pack in Homebase so make sure if you see something you like that you check if it's cheaper elsewhere. Also we bought some good quality underlay that makes it feel a bit softer and reduces noise. It looks great. I hope this helps.

We are just about to get some from b&q called zebrano. Its dark but not too dark because its stripy. Its not down yet so not sure what the effect will be like. I think thats its obviously a laminate and we will not fool anyone into thinking its a real wood floor but its only 12.99 sqm2 as oppose to 50+ for real wood.

can highly recommend B & Q tileloq. We have the grey/blue slate and everyone says a) how fab it looks and b) is it really laminate? looks like tiles but with no grouting to gather grime.

We like Floors 2 go, they have ones with grooves cut in along the edge to make it look more real. I had visions of scrubbing the said groove with a toothbrush, so opted for the "optical groove" which looks like it is a groove but when you get up very close it's actually flat.

The grooviness (!) makes it look a lot more like wood, and lots of people have commented on how nice it is. It's quite dark too.

LegoLea I definitely want something GROOVY as I agree that helps to make it look more real - do you really think that if it had an actual rather than optical groove it would be a nightmare to clean?