Engineered wood or Karndeen wood effect in a kitchen....best option?

[mrsbleasdale]

Looking at ideas for flooring. Not fancing tiles and original floorboads not an option.

Engineered wood looks great , but have just seen price of karndean is similar. Not keen on vinyl/80's lino stuff but Karndeen looks quite good. Or is it silly to have fake wood, when we can have real wood (sort of)

With 3 small kids i want easy maintanence. Anyone had these, both? Easy to look after?

Bamboo! The best of all worlds. Looks beautiful and very easy to maintain. I have the 'natural strand-woven' sort and it's virtually scratch-resistant. (Someone here on MN recommended it and I've never looked back.)

Someone has recommended Bamboo for a worktop too.

Better get reading up on Bamboo i think - thanks

I have Karndean in American Oak and in Soapstone It's been down for 6 years now and is looking fine. Few scratches in high wear areas (bottom of the stairs mainly) - the soapstone doesn't show the scratches so much. It's easy to clean although mine probably needs resealing now in the downstairs loo where I'm a bit of a demon with the bleach (3 blokes in the house )

No experience of engineered wood so can't compare. HTH

I have engineered wood ( Bausen natural wax oak wide planks ) throughout downstairs incl kitchen and I have QuickStep ( similar to Karndean ) in our ensuite.

Both are great. I like the oak best as it has very wide planks which I love. Maintenance is fine, as long as you don't leave large puddles of water on it for prolonged periods. I generally walk barefoot in the house and like the feel of the oak on my toots more too. We have underfloor heating under it which is fab.

I was asking a flooring shop about the relative merits of both of these the other day. One thing he said about karndean was that there needed to be more floor preparation (e.g., screed/ self-levelling compound) He gave us a price for installation and supply which was exactly double the price for the karndean supply alone. I gather that you can just lay engineered planks over underlay rather than having to have a new self-levelling screed. Although you do of course have to buy the underlay.

Thanks all. I think engineered wood is the way to go. Had some pale oak samples delivered and they are gorgoeous. I also walked on them and like the feel too

I went to see about Karndean after seeing the price, but as you've said the price of installation is more than the tiles themselves.

I'm not too keen on the 'fake' look either and although engineered isn't real planks of wood it looks pretty good to me! Hopefully easier and cheaper to fit!

Decision made! Now to decide on the rest of the kitchen

I was going to suggest the wood too - we had that in our old kitchen - but it seems you've made your mind up already! Just watch out for any spills and make sure they are removed quickly.

Engineered wood is real wood, it's just that the good stuff (i.e. the oak) is in a thinnish layer on a base of cheap pine. You can even sand/revarnish if you ever need to. Laminate, on the other hand, is just a photo of wood!

tiles are the best for keeping clean.

Personally I would avoid wood engineered, as strictly speaking you are supposed to minimise water on them but in a busy kitchen its not pratical. I have found at the edges of this expensive floor in some areas turning colour and in some places curling.

I'm not as keen on this floor as I thought, it gets very dirty very quick and does scratch and dent.

We have Karndean in our kitchen. It is great, pretty realistic looking (oak flooring everywhere else downstairs and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb), very durable and copes with kids, teenagers, parties, a large dog etc etc, and very low maintenance. I can't imagine wood looking as good in a kitchen after 6 years as our Karndean does.

Agree with Scaredofcrows. We have Amtico oak effect, same sort of stuff as Karndean and it still looks great. Leads into a real oak floored hall and the difference is not obvious. So easy to clean and maintain and won't be ruined if your dishwasher floods or whatever.