What flooring in our kitchen diner?

[notasize10yetbutoneday]

Hi all

We are knocking down the stud walls between our kitchen, dining room and study to make one kitchen diner.

We will be having light/medium oak units with black granite (I know, I know) worktops.

We are stuck as to what to have on the floor as we definitely want the same flooring all the way through- I love tiles in a kitchen but wouldn't want them in a dining area. I keep hearing things about Amtico and Karndean but know nothing about them. We have no children yet but are TTC yet so need something indestructible I guess!

What do you have, or what would you have, in your kitchen diner?

I'd have Karndean slate. And Corian worktops. Currently have granite and don't really like

Don't really like them, I mean.

Engineered wood would be my choice, if you can find sth which looks good with your units.

Don't have tiles with white grouting

we have real slate. its lovely. but cold. so we have underfloor heating.

We have tile effect lino - sounds naff but very good quality and so easy to keep clean. Also warm on your feet and DD (who has wobbly balance) comes off better than she would with tiles!

People seem quite genuinely shocked when you say is not tiles (either that or they hide distain quite well )!!

We have amtico and it's great. We have an oakey sort, but they do lovely slates and tiles too. It's easy to clean and hard wearing. Warmer underfoot than slate or tiles too and much less clattery when you drop things or walk on it in your shoes. They do two sorts - ordinary amtico, which is expensive and a cheaper sort designed for domestic use, which is what I have. Think it's called spacia. You can put inderfloor heating with it. We have the electric sort.

Ceramic tiles with u/f heating

This stuff is great.

Thank you all for your replies. I've looked on the karndean and amtico websites and it certainly looks good so we will be going to visit some retailers this weekend. I don't know if we are punching above our weight though. For a 25 msq area we were hoping to spend £1000 max on the flooring.

I prefer the look (and price!) of engineered wood BUT i'm worried about the waterproofness of it- if the washing machine were to leak eg then it would be a huge area and expense to replace. But maybe I'm being silly to base our chouce of flooring on a 'what if' scenario.

AlsO I'm not sure what colour wood will go with the oak units. ARGH! I'm having second and thirs thoughts about the whole thing TBH, it seems so scary and huge. Might start another thread as I'm undecided on so many things.

Id hate to say the word laminate outloud.. but we have been recommended Balterio.. my friend has just put some Balterio Liberty oak in her new kitchen/diner/living space and it looks amazing.. really thought honestly honestly that it was engineered wood. we are now thinking of having it in our lounge diner in a lighter shade..

We have Karndean flooring. Great compared to wood flooring and spills don't affect them like they do with a laminate or wood floor.
Our quartz worktops are great but wish I'd held off buying them till now because Kitchensfitted, who we bought them from has a free sink offer on.
Could have saved ourselves a little more I guess but I couldn't have lasted another day using old tops as a temporary thing and cooking the Christmas dinner was a dream in our new kitchen.