Flooring choices for bathrooms and utility room please

[befuzzled]

About to move into a house, flooring needs updated. Currently whole house is laminate except utility and bathrooms which have some weird vinyl type thing with raise fuzzy bits, foul. Going to replace kitchen and bathroom first as laminate to nice wood has to with for new kitchen, renovations, funds later.

So what are my options,

Don't want laminate or vinyl a that is what being replaced
Don't want engineered or real wood as will clash with eventual laminate replacement in rest of house and has to be practical/ water resistant for bath and utility room
Not overly convinced about rubber.

So am thinking to tile it. That is where my knowledge runs out. What kind of tiles?

Don't like the cheap shiny effect ones I see very much (ceramic?)
Don't want black/dark as had once and nightmare to clean
Prefer the light, matt effect tiles - does this mean limestone? But expensive and not practical, don't want to have to worry to much about staining etc

Can I fake that effect with ceramic tiles?

Ideas please

Wait for new kitchen

We have slate tiles, they come in a range of colours (all basically greyish) and last forever.

How practical are they for areas that get wet, can you clean them easily or special products etc? Am liking that suggestion as I am assuming they are not shiny, thanks - where did you get them from,

I just go over mine with a slightly damp mop every week or so. We got welsh slate which is about £50/sq m but Brazilian slate is a quarter of that (DH has a thing about supporting the British mining industry). They are fine getting wet, our off cuts have been in the garden for a year now and they're fine (and have you seen how wet wales is?)
They're matt, and riven slate is more textured for better grip when wet.
We just googled "slate flooring" and compared prices.

Ah bless your DH, that's commendable. Not sure budget will allow, maybe we could have 1 in 5 tiles welsh or something? Cosmopolitan effect! Thanks am googling slate now, seems more practical than my other idea, limestone.

any other ideas?

Don't discount ceramic. Go and have a look at Porcelanosa if there's one near you - almost indistinguishable from stone, random patterns so there's no giveaway 'repeat', and cheaper than stone. Think Fired Earth do a ceramic stone lookalike as well but suspect Porcelanosa will be cheaper.

We are going for:
bathroom 1 -sheet vinyl (may need to be lifted), hopefully a better one than yours with no fuzzy bits!
bathroom 2 - Amtico or sealed cork tiles
utility - cheapish ceramic tiles. There are some lovely ones around that you would not tell apart from stone, but we were on a budget and trying to match the adjacent room. Porcelain tiles seem to cost more look better than "ceramic". I did look at riven slate in Wickes but they were very rustic and uneven.

The way I see it none of these are rooms where you spend a lot of time admiring the floor, you just need non slip and easy clean.

if you are tiling the bathroom floor, and assuming it is not concrete, it needs to be boarded with 18mm or 25mm WBP ply to prevent cracking. Some bathroom fitters screw it down to the existing gloorboards, which gives a step up, but it is better practice to take up the old flooring and lay the ply as new direct onto the joists, with any short joints nogged. If the old floor is chipboard it will be complete rubbish and ready for the bonfire so has got to come up.

Examine all underfloor pipes and cables as you will resist taking the tiles up for future repairs

Thanks pj you are very useful! We havent got the keys yet sonincant check what is underneath, is only 7y old so am assuming concrete. Will make sure whoever fits new floors follows your tips though. Would you mind going on the other thread about white paint and telling me what to use on walls and woodwork please

LOLing at the idea of having one in five tiles from Wales!

I stayed in a lovely home recently which had cork tiles on the bathroom floor, with a warm green in the walls. The cork looked lovely and was very comfortable underfoot.