New floors - what have you got?

[MarshaBrady]

We are looking at new floors.

What have you got in your

• living room
• bathroom
• kitchen
• bedrooms?

Do you like it, any recommendations. Thanks

Oh no Dalek. Argh

We just had our bathroom floor done. Had rubber. Not vinyl, not Lino, not amitco. Sorry I can't link from phone, but its the same as the stuff with the raised dots that you get in airports and gyms. There's a brand called Dalsouple which is very expensive, this is a cheaper version from a company called Kimpton in wales who you can google. Anyway, it comes in all kinds of colours, is soft and warm underfoot, not slippery and hard wearing. It won't mark like vinyl, it can scuff but you can restore the surface with amitco emulsion.

I have tip that you must follow. You MUST get a sample and try it out first. I was really close to buying Karndean, ready to sign on the dotted line and at the last minute decided to take a sample home. It looked awful. I am now rethinking everything. It would have been a very costly mistake.

Yes. I got heaps of samples. Similar products from different suppliers can differ wildly!

Good quality engineered oak with no knots. Wide and long strips. Look fab and looks as good as new early two years on. (with lots of traffic ) It has an extra thick top layer so I can have it sanded a good few times unlike cheap versions. It was as expensive as solid oak.
I have through colour porcelain tiles in the bathrooms and kitchens so if they ever chip the chips will not be noticible. Underfloor heating is great if you can budget for it.

We have bamboo in the hall, living room, dining room, study. had it 3 years, looks as good as new. Marmoleum in the kitchen, down 11 years, still looks fab, warm underfoot and easy to care for. Carpets in two of the bedrroms, and vinyl in the two upstairs bathrooms.

How careful are you with your bamboo floors, TOES? Do you have covers on furniture legs, for instance? Shoe-wearing banned in the house? Dogs banned?

I've been told we really need to have those things with Karndean, and bamboo is supposed to be much less durable.

We've got carpet (80:20 wool/synthetic mix, with awesome underlay) upstairs in the bedrooms and on the stairs. It's lovely.

The bathroom has ceramic tiles that were put there by the previous owners. They're not cold at all, despite not having underfloor heating. I haven't even thought about at we'll put when we re-do the bathroom.

Downstairs, we have oyster slate in the kitchen. It's lovely and hides dirt brilliantly. The reception rooms and downstairs hall have decent quality laminate (from the previous owners too), which we can live with until we have the money to replace with wood. It may be engineered wood as we're thinking about underfloor heating because there are no great options for radiator positioning in the reception rooms. The living room radiator is currently behind a couch and is completely useless as a result.

My mum used to have karndean in her kitchen. It looked lovely and was very durable. It didn't scratch (at least not so you'd notice) and she didn't have covers on her chair legs or anything. She's now replaced it with (quite ugly) ceramic tiles.

We have wool mix carpet throughout the house except bathroom and kitchen which are tiled. Same carpet, same colour (sort of grey/beige) every room and done all at once, cost 2.5K. It looks nice and is warm, soft, and quiet.

We had laminate before and it was awful, noisy, hard and freezing cold. I love the look of wood and bamboo but unless you have underfloor heating I can't imagine they are any warmer than laminate. Plus, the noise! CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP all day long, arrgh!

We're not that careful with it! We have felt covers on the dining room chairs, that's about it.

Yes wood could be loud. Soft carpet is nice, thick. Wood could have a pretty (Persian?) rug on top. In say, living room and hall.

Anyone have wood not tiles/slate in kitchen?

Oyster slate sounds lovely.

What regular maintenance do you bamboo & wood floor owners do on your floors? I remember my parents getting our wood floors revarnished maybe once in 15 years. My folks were very live & let live, though, we wore shoes everywhere in the house, no furniture leg covers, either.

Our Karndean is "only" ten years old & we have deep scratches & holes in it. The Flooring guys gasp at the condition of it. That's when they suggested no dogs, no shoes and furniture leg covers.

Okay, maintenance: maybe that's why our karndean is so degraded. I've never used the propietary cleaners on it, just usual cheap supermarket brands. Should I have done more, reapplied polyurethane layer, maybe??

bamdoo - yup, its got scratches and dents. I rub olive oil into them, they vanish.
I have felt on the bottoms of chairs and feet under the metal dining table feet
have cats not dogs
hiking boots are worn all over the house
yup, the floor will need a sand back and reseal in another few years - its 13mm thick. it'll cope
sweep daily, mop weekly with waitrose finest.

its a HOME not a SHOWROOM

Is that the bamboo that gets sanded down occasionally? (Sorry, being thick).

apparently it can be - I'm not planning to in a hurry.

In the hall/dining room/lounge we are having laminate installed. In the kitchen and WC ceramic tiles (the ones in the wc are anti-slip). Up the stairs, on the landing and in all of the bedrooms carpet, and in the family bathroom and ensuite anti slip ceramic tiles.

I cannot wait to see it finished.

Cream ceramic tiles throughout downstairs. They were here when we moved in and whilst not entirely to my taste they are practical, I do like the uniformity of it though. There is underfloor heating everywhere too.

They aren't shiney so not slippery when wet. I guess they are limestone effect as closest comparison. Anyway with 4 children and 2 dogs they are a breeze to keep clean.

We had a stone/beige coloured carpet fitted on the stairs, landing and bedrooms when we moved in but it's already flattening after only 6 months.

The bathrooms are vinyl/lino black and white tiled effect again easy to keep clean and not as cold underfoot as tiles.

bonzo, how are you finding the fluff issue that was described up thread? I like the look of Dalsouple very much but am afeared of the cleaning!

Anyone have a wooden floor in a bathroom?

bella no fluff to speak of. Our house can be quite dusty though not fluffy because we only have carpet in the bedrooms. Because the rubber has the raised dots I find vacuuming better than sweeping. Then I mop with washing up liquid. When it was laid we didn't bother with the surface treatment that was recommended, but found that it was getting dirty quite fast due to a slightly matt finish. So I used amitco emulsion on it as recommended by a flooring person. 2 coats applied with a j cloth at right angles to each other, 30 minutes to dry in between. Very quick job which I did on Saturday and so far looking spotless. I think that it could be the matt surface that attracted fluff in the pp's case, and the dirt in mine, but the emulsion leaves a shines surface which seems better. It really does look nice. I have pale grey in the family bathroom and bright green in the ensuite.

bonzo, thanks. Our bathroom's tiny so hopefully that shouldn't be too much upkeep. Did you buy Dalsouple or Amtico, or a bargain version? And did you lay it before the bathroom suite?

Sorry for hijack!

My boiler guy (lovely man, serviced it yesterday) said that he has a floating bamboo floor in upstairs bathroom. Excess from when his kitchen was done. He reckons that bamboo is much warmer underfoot than tiles. He also said that the bamboo in his kitchen is holding up well to abuse.

We had quarry tiles in previous house kitchen & I really didn't think they were that cold as flooring goes. I loved them tiles.

Oh it's all helpful. Sometimes you have to live with something to know if you love it.

We're still talking about carpet v wood for most of the rooms. Tiles or wood (?) in the kitchen.

I'd love a wooden floor in the kitchen .