which floor for kitchen diner?

[seven201]

We've recently had the wall between our kitchen and dining room knocked down. For the living room and entrance were having engineered oak put in. Our dilemma is what to do in the kitchen diner. The problem is one day we might extend the kitchen outwards or if not just re-do the kitchen. We'd like the two rooms to be a bit more merged. I would go for the oak everywhere downstairs but we have definitely decided we don't want wood in the kitchen as we're just not good at clearing up watt straight away etc. (We had a wood floor in our previous flat). The plan was going to be to leave the current kitchen tile floor (which is ok but we don't love it) and have oak on the diner bit but I'm worried the room won't 'flow' as well and could look agree if we use one flooring surface. So... Instead we could put down a stone (e.g. Slate) in both rooms and have a big rug in the diner bit. My worry is this is a big expense and if we do later extend is it possible to get a good enough match for the new part? Also if we do extend we could maybe go all out and put underfloor heating in there (not something we intend to do now). I definitely don't want any wood effect tiles etc. It's definitely either a stone in both rooms or oak in the diner and leave the kitchen as is (for now at least). If it makes a difference it's an Edwardian house and we're going to change the kitchen wall tiles and I'm going to paint the kitchen cupboards either pale grey or off white.

Sorry that was both long and boring!

Here's a real bad photo! Our table is just poking into view on the right.

Does the dining room only connect with the kitchen? If so the rooms will look much better being the same ie stone.

You can get slate online from about £15m2 plus maybe 2 days fitting at £300. So you're looking at £500ish to do the kitchen in slate. If its going to be a couple of years before you extend then Id probably do it.

Thanks sunny. The dining room links on to the entrance (tiny 2m square) but there's a door to separate them so I think it would be fine. Would stone on the entrance be more practical there too? It would I suppose. That would mean that only the living room would be oak but I think that would be OK (also deprecated by a door)? I don't want stone in the living room I think. Gosh I didn't realise you could get it so cheap! I haven't researched stone yet so assumed it would cost a fortune! This may be do-able!

Personally Id use stone for the entrance too - its much easier to clean, especially darker colours.

Slate is one of the cheaper stones, brazilian black slate particularly. Travertine light coloured smooth stone is at least £40pm2, but our house is period so a riven slate is more in keeping and luckily is much cheaper! Although Im using this black limestone for our hallway. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310797841832?euid=6013b99dee8d429fbe8d3d6611005c41&cp=1

Fitting costs are higher than wood, but even so each time Ive looked stone has been cheaper than oak flooring.

Ive also used this company before:
www.floorsofstone.com/our-tile-range/slate-tiles

Did you know, you can get tiles that look exactly like wood? this could help your room 'flow' just google wood effect ceramic kitchen/bathroom tiles.

Not having wood in the entrance is a blessing.

For the extension bit, think about how likely is it going to happen. If it really is in the futur plans I would buy the extra slate tiles right now to be sure that they match.

If it is too expensive right now, then I would do slate only in the diner, keep the tiles you have now but buy the slate you would use for the kitchen. Like that when/if you extend it is easier to blend the new slate with the old batch and if you simply redo the kitchen you already have the good flooring.

I typed a whole message on this but it didn't go through!

Definitely keep the flooring the same throughout to make it flow better. I'd go for slate grey if i were you. My mum has a mixed slate tile and loves it, shows no bits and is easy to mop etc. She had a shiny Brown and hated that as it showed a lot of dirt!

If you're getting an extension in the near future it should be fine and you'll be able to get matching

Wow thanks everyone! I think I'm sold. I was hoping to find a mid-grey rather than one of the nearly black slates as the room is already a little dark but I don't want anything too pale (I have dark hair that gets everywhere!). I will look at those links, thanks sunny. Our house is Edwardian so I think one that has a slight texture to the surface would 'go' best. Thanks again

I don't think I'd do real slate unless it's well sealed otherwise every spec of oil from cooking etc will mark.

Good point. We'd definitely seal it but I didn't realise it had to be sealed well.

A texture would be good more of a rough finish than smooth. We are doing our kitchen diner too at the moment and it's also quite dark. I think if you've got a lightish kitchen it should be ok and plus if you wanted to change your kitchen in future grey is a colour that tends to match well with everything.

I asked my mum and her tiles aren't slate but ceramic. I don't know if they are cheaper than slate or need oiling etc but like I say she recommends them for easy upkeep

Ceramic lookalike slate is easier to maintain. As are ceramic planks that look like wood. Lots of choice.

Thanks everyone. I think I need to go to a tile shop and have an explore. I hate shopping for stuff like this as I usually just buy everything on the Internet! I have ordered some real stone samples online just now but maybe I should go and have a proper explore. I'm really not a fan of fake wood tiles, I'm sure they look great but if it's wood i want it to feel like wood under my feet if you see what I mean. I'm not against a ceramic tile though but it would have to look like a non copy just nice ceramic or not be able to tell at all that it wasn't the real mc coy. I'm fussy I know! It's taken me about 45 different samples to finally pick the oak floor we want (brushed uv oiled, 150mm widths).

We've got oyster slate tiles, which are a range of colours but many of them are a mid grey. They're so varied naturally that I can't imagine adding more later would be an issue. The picture shows you the range of colours you get.

Also, we don't have problems with marking. We did have them sealed, but not fanatically. You might get problems with a more uniformly coloured slate though.

In fact, the floor hides dirt generally incredibly well. It's got so much natural variation that a drop of oil or even a bit of dropped onion peel isn't in any way noticeable. Obviously we do actually clean the floor, but it never looks dirty in between.

Very pretty, thanks step.