Wooden floors/engineered/laminate?

[Letmesleepalready]

We need flooring for our living and dining room. We've already got a rug for the living area, so what we buy needs to work for the dining area.
2 very messy DCs (spilt drinks happen on a weekly basis or more) who also enjoy craft and play doh. So carpet is out of the question.
I'm worried the laminated /engineered wood would get damaged very quickly, but are slightly cheaper than solid wood.

Can you give me pros and cons (and approx prices) if you have any of those in your dining area? Our budget would be really stretched if we went for the solid wood, but it might last better?

At a very big push we might be able to afford up to £40/sqm if it was the real deal, but I wouldn't want to spend anywhere near that for the other options.
Thanks.

You would struggle to get quality engineered oak for that - think ours was £50+ per metre and that's just for the flooring (then you need the underlay, fitting etc).

With that kind of budget, you'd get decent laminate. Might also be looking at bamboo - we have it in the hall and its pretty much bombproof.

I saw bamboo, it's a nice colour. I'm glad to hear it's really hardy, I'll look into it some more.

DH would do the fitting, so we'd manage to cut costs that way.

We have engineered wood in our hall & considering it has prams, buggies, scooters & bikes abusing it I think it looks ok. There are scratches on it where the hoover has caught a stone but no real damage & that was me not being careful. Ours was £70/80 psm 5 years ago.

We chose ours because we were told we could sand it down & varnish it once the kids were bigger. Ours was a matt finish.

If £40/metre is your budget for the wood alone, I think you can find something. How big is the room? For smaller spaces, you can sometimes find heavily discounted packs on ebay! Alternatively, I had great success bargaining down a flooring supplier for a large quantity of oiled engineered oak - it was cheap anyway, but it was just before Christmas and they wanted to make sales targets and they ended up knocking it down to well under half price.

Think about your heat source. If you're using a fierce source of heat like a logburner or even an open fire, or planning to get one fitted in the future, you need engineered. Real wood has a risk of warping.

One of the major things to consider is the finish on the wood. Do NOT go for an oiled finish with young children - I find it hard to maintain with 2 adults and a cat. A hard lacquered finish is much more practical.

The room is just over 18sqm. I keep looking on eBay, but the cheaper ones tend to be 10sqm or less, and I don't think different brands will work together.
DH wanted to oil it, so I'm glad you've warned us not to do that!
We still haven't decided what we're doing about the hallway, might try tiles.

Our hallway is tiled - it's very practical. Any mess just gets a wipe.

We have wooden floors in the sitting and dining rooms. I don't think I'd want to put it though spillages or crafts etc unless you've got the best possible seal on it (oiling probably wouldn't cut it). The most practical option would be laminate although it does look cheap and sounds annoying when you walk on it.

Look at wood effect Amtico - often ends of industrial jobs on Ebay. Once laid properly and the odd bubble fixed, it's nigh on indestructible.

Thanks, we ended up buying engineered wood from Homebase, it was about £20/sqm so if it all looks awful in 2 years time we should be able to replace it (hopefully it'll look nice for much longer!)
We're having tiles in the hallway, as we have the buggy, muddy shoes and all sorts that would ruin any other flooring.