We've reserved our new house, please help me with flooring.

[LazySusan11]

Reserved our house today, a new build so before the roof goes on we’re choosing our kitchen. Quite frankly most of the choices are crap but we’ve chosen an ivory gloss with natural wood worktop. We will change the worktops further down the line but for now it’ll be ok.

Chosen ivory as I want a warm natural feel to it as it’s fairly large and I know lots of people love white but I feel it’ll be a little to sterile.

My issue is the flooring, do we go with tile or wood? Or a vinyl wood or tile effect?

I want the kitchen to feel warm, it’s a very light room I have no idea how to get it ‘right’ any ideas gratefully received!

We've got wood effect lino, I was very snobbish about it before it went in but it's actually pretty good.

Go with a vinyl wood effect which compliments the worktop?

We have tile effect vinyl. Like the previous poster I was a bit snobby about it before moving in as our previous house had tiled floors, but it looks good and has held up well. Besides, our kitchen is huge so the extra cost the house builder wanted to tile the floor was ridiculous!

I think vinyl will be good because we can easily change it if we want to a few years later. I did think wood effect but having seen some lovely stone effect vinyl now I don’t know what to do. I am not enjoying this part at all!

This is supposed to be the fun bit!! We have wood effect work top, white gloss cupboards & wood effect lino. I would have picked cream cupboards given the choice, but am actually very pleased with the overall look.

We have cream gloss cupboards and chose slate tile effect Lino - love it (and so cheap!) - nice to walk on and cheap and easy to change (although still looking good after nearly 3 years!)

We’re going to be in this situation in a few months - reserving off plan in Jan. I’m a bit worried now you’ve said all the choices were a bit crap! Can I ask which house builder or if you don’t want to say, is it a big national one or a local one?

If you have wooden work surface I would go for tiles or stone whether real or lino. If you choose wood you'll end up with an ivory gloss sandwich!

Tea we’ve chosen a home with Barratts, the cupboard doors aren’t awful but the worktops are in my opinion rubbish, it’s personal preference though lots of people love white gloss with black worktops, it’s not my thing.

I’m leaning towards the stone effect vinyl, Karndean look quite good, is there anywhere else anyone can recommend?

The colours are similar to the kitchen photo attached, I’m not a huge fan of the worktop it’s a bit too yellowy but I don’t want really dark worktops..argh I am not having fun! Which of these worktops would you choose with ivory gloss?

1&2 are natural block and walnut block 3&4 are wenge. There are other options but I didn’t like those.

2 for the worktop. We have wood effect karndean- it's bomb proof and looks fab!!

For worktop I agree with Olivia - 2 is the best choice. 4 is grey (if you are going to go grey you probably should go the whole hog and match the rest of your house to black & white/grey - that is, not warm tones. This sort of thing is 'modern' but I think will date dreadfully. Warm tones are very pleasant to live with and if I were you I would aim for warm tones). 3 is too firmly striped. No 1 has so much variation that it isn't good. 2 is lovely.

For your floors I would: (1) Tile in the wet part of the kitchen with underfloor heating (surprisingly inexpensive to have them put in a grid system thing prior to laying tile). I insisted this for our bathroom renovation and it is something that we enjoy every day. (2) Wood in non-wet areas or if it is too expensive can you get a nice (i.e. wood-looking) cork? Cork is soft, not noisy and I have seen it in a friend's house and it is really comfortable to live with - it is 'softer' than wood underfoot.

If you have to juggle finances, I would get the underfloor heating plus tile in the wet area (very expensive to get tile replaced.....) and put something cheap and cheerful down everywhere else, with a view to replacing with a great choice of material when you have funds.

We have fake plasticy wood-style flooring in part of our house and while it looks great I strongly dislike walking on it. We are saving up to replace with real wood.

I also agree two for the work top will look much more expensive and classy. I’d go for a neutral tiled floor. What are the tile options? Lime stone would be lovely.

I don’t think looking at them those pictures are very true to likeness, no 2 the walnut is very dark and no 1 is more yellow. I’m going back to the showroom on Monday to recheck my choices 🙄

If number 1 looks like the kitchen photo you attached then deffo go with that.