Wood floor ideas needed

[MummyNessi]

We are in the proses of buying a house that needs a lot of cosmetic work. It needs new flooring every ( at the moment it's got shaggy brown carpets and plastic pink something )
I would like hard wood floors all over, but I guess you can't have wood in bathrooms? And what about the kitchen? I would prefer to have same floor in kitchen as in dining area and lounge as it's semi open plan but can you have hard wood in the kitchen?
And what about engineered wood?
Is it a lot cheaper? Will it last as well?
I need something hard wearing and easy to clean. The floor and the kitchen are my two priorities to spend a bit more money although i can't go crazy.
Any recommendations on great looking hard wearing hardwood floors?

There are some exotic woods that could be used in bathrooms but 99% of wood or engineered wood isn’t suitable.

If you want sth easy to mop and suitable for everywhere, there currently quite a fashion for vinyls that imitate wood (Karndean, Amtico etc).

Given past experience, I wouldn’t have wood in the kitchen but some people do. I suppose it does better if you do little cooking and there’s little splashing or wearing of the floor in the spots by the oven or the sink.

I see.. I do cook a lot and have 3 kids and don't like being to careful want easy maintenance.. I'm not keen on vinyl... but maybe I should have a look..

There are some very realistic vinyls and I even saw some tiles in Topps Tiles that looked a lot like wood. My friend has Karndean I think and I always forget it isn’t actually wood. If I spill something I panic until I wipe it up and remember.

We have a type of Karndean style flooring. It's sort of floppy panels that are glued down to the floor. It looks like wood but it's practically indestructible which is handy with 2 small children. It comes in loads of styles and colours. It's fabulous.

Thanks!
Have just ordered some samples of the Karndean looks good on the pictures but I'm still not sure if I will like it if it's got a "plastic feel" put easy maintenance is very good...
can you use them in wet rooms as well?

TBH, I don't find vinyl convincing enough to think it's the real deal even for a split second. See what you make of Karndean, but if it doesn't float your boat, you could get a washable kitchen rug to protect the floor in tricky areas.

Depending on the floorplan, you could also try tiles in the kitchen and dining area and just use a rug in the latter to warm it up. Or just have some funky tiles in the kitchen section.

A few pics with ideas.

I have bamboo all through downstairs including the downstairs loo. Do a search on mumsnet for bamboo flooring. They are old threads but the information is the same!

We have Polyflor Expona Beveline on our kitchen floor. It's a commercial grade LVT. Polyflor make Karndean which is the main rival to Amtico. It looks like oak and is very easy to look after. Wasn't as expensive as either Karndean or Amtico.

There's a lot of snobbery about vinyl flooring, but my parents have had LVT in their kitchen and bathroom (two different ones in each room over the years) for about 30 odd years and it looks and wears really well.

I would have tiles in the kitchen and bathrooms. They are easier to look after and smarter, in my view, then vinyl or similar.

Engineered wood is fine and much more widely available then solid wood. It has endless finishes and plank widths. Solid wood is less stable and far less of it is sold these days. It takes more trees to make it so isn’t food environmentally either. Engineered comes in a variety of veneer depths and lasts forever if you don’t get water all over it.

I have Bamboo
in the kitchen, the bathrooms, the hall, the dining room, the utility room.

Its 9 years old now and starting to get a bit worn - but we are a shoes on house and have parties every now and then.

Bamboo is VERY environmental - 3 years from sprout to harvest
and is warm to walk on

PS my worktops are bamboo as well - I'm horrible to them and they still look wonderful

I'd say wood is a lot more environmentally friendly that man-made stuff. The latter causes a lot of pollution and doesn't last as long. If you look at some old properties, looked after wooden floors are still there 200+ years later.

We recently got some engineered wood for the family room we were very happy with - it was this stuff. We went for the thickest wear layer you can find (6mm) so it will last and can be sanded down and refinished (first pic)

In the kitchen diner we have karndean which I also like but you need a very flat sub floor otherwise it looks rubbish. It's very hardy though and great for wet areas.

The majority of LVT is made up of a high proportion of recycled material.

The majority of LVT is made up of a high proportion of recycled material.
Do you have a link for that ?

I sense that is a snarky way of saying you don't believe me. Apologies if I am wrong. You can look it up easily online. Polyflor products average 40% recycled content, for example.

It is a claim that does not seem to be backed up by that manufacturers website.
Could you link the page that you saw ...

And I'd be very surprised if the cheap end of the market had much recycled in it.

At least with Bamboo I knew what variety, roughly where and how long it had grown before I bought it.

The problem with the vinyl tiles on a big area, is that you have to lay screed first. We couldn't do that without moving out!

We went for porcelain wood effect tiles. They look great, and need no looking after.

Iv order some bamboo samples as well although I'm not sure if I like the look as much as oak or similar. But we will see.

Chandlersfraud i like the look of that floor!
Does engineered wood have the repetitive pattern like ( I think) vinyl does? Where we are renting now you can see the same pieces of "wood" and it makes it look fake.. but I'm not sure what kind of floor this is or if it's just badly done.

Pickleme popcorn
We used to have tiles in our old house all down stairs and liked it But we had under floor heating and I'm not sure how it would work with radiators..? Would it be very cold?
I mean it would be ok in just the kitchen but maybe not all downstairs.

Engineered wood has real wood as a top layer (eg the 6mm mentioned) so it’s a natural finish and not a repetitive pattern.

Depends. Mine are textured so feel warmer than the smooth glossy tiles. In a living room, you'd have a rug as well, maybe?

@TalkinPeece - it's not hidden, I found it quite easily. here on the specification tab under £18 psm. Cheaper than typical retail prices for Amtico and Karndean by a long way.

No - as stated above the engineered wood has the natural grain on the top layer so each piece is unique.

With vinyl there's vinyl and vinyl if you see what I mean. The karndean vinyl I think does have the same pattern but there is lots of variety in the pack and in ours I can't pick out the recurring pattern - it's very realistic (see second pic)