Considering wood floors - need advice

[Loulou1009]

We are considering getting wooden flooring for our open plan kitchen/ living/ dining room. Will this dent easily - eg by stiletto shoes? How do you clean it - do you use a vacuum cleaner on it? Would you recommend another form of flooring - my kids always spill stuff so keen to avoid carpet. Advice needed. At muchly.

Have you considered Karndean? I've heard a few opinions on here about it - some love and some don't. I think the ones that don't like it have a problem with something (vinyl) pretending to be something it's not (wood). If that wouldn't bother you though, you can get a floor that is easy to clean (vac/mop) needs little to no maintenance, is warm(er than tiles) and fine to get wet. We've got it on our entire ground floor and have never had wood so I can't answer your other questions but it is a hundred times better than the laminate we replaced.

I've got untreated reclaimed oak & really regret it. It looks dusty & you're not supposed to wash with a mop & bucket although I do after reading about Method Cleaner on here.
I would consider engineered wood next time.

We've just had oiled engineered wood fitted in a similar area. I love it.

We've only swept it so far. I plan to spot clean it with some special wipes I saw in asda.

It will dent if you wear heels on it or drop things, but we went for one with a really knotted look so it shouldn't show too much. I love it.

We bought polish and sealant stuff from Amazon for ours. One coat and it's all sparkly and new.

We are going for engineered wood (Oak) in living room. We were going to go for Karndean as we have it in the hall and study but was TWICE the price of engineered wood!!! The fitting is more tricky I think.

Really hoping to get it done before Christmas but not sure finances will allow!

I had a solid oak floor with clear lacquer finish for 10yrs in my old house. I had it throughout the ground floor (hall, lounge, dining, WC) except for kitchen & utility which had porcelain tiles.
It only sustained damage in one area by a door when a stone got wedged under the door and someone DH forced it shut dragging the stone with force across the floor.

After 10yrs it did if you looked closely have a few scratches but to be honest they did not detract from the beautiful floor. If we had stayed I probably would have got it lightly sanded and re lacquered, within a year or so but 10yrs of just cleaning it was fine.
We will be having a solid oak floor again in this house once we've finished all the building work.

I have engineered wood (oak) & love it. I sweep/ vacuum often & mop every now & then with a microfibre mop. It has dents where I dropped the hoover down the stairs & where I tripped over DS's bike but they're not glaringly obvious & blend in to the markings of the wood. I'd definitely get it again.

We have a very dark strand woven solid bamboo floor through our hall and living dining room. Looks pretty good after 5 years but I do sweep it daily and wash weekly.

We're renting a flat at the moment with a wooden floor dotted with stiletto marks. It is such a shame

I have wooden oak floors in two houses we use. One dents a bit, the other, which I think must have been very expensive, doesn't.

My kitchen areas, though both open plan are not wooden. One is marble and the other a tough new man made ceramic which was recommended by the marble specialist as tougher for an area which can get messy. I am definitely too messy in the kitchen for wooden floors to be te best option there.