Karndean or engineered wood for kitchen?

[Wintermonster]

We've always had engineered wood but DH wants to consider Karndean.

Is there any reasons for and against we should consider first?

It's a cold room so my thoughts is engineered wood will be warmer under foot.

DH is worried about longevity of engineered wood in high traffic kitchen.

Does anyone have any pictures of their Karndean floors?

I'm worried it looking shiny or like Lino?

My own personal view, you can tell. If you didnt look properly or never mentioned it, I'm sure there are people who would never guess its lino, but for anyone else, I think it looks like lino.

My parents have it throughout their downstairs and love it. It has stood the test of 5 grandchildren and associated trucks / ride on toys / spills and they're very happy with it. It looks nice but theres no getting away from the fact its lino but their priority was something that was hard wearing/ easy to clean etc.

I have engineered wood in a large kitchen diner and I much prefer it. I accept it's not as practical, but it's been down 3 years and stood up to busy family life and still looks as good as new.

We removed our engineered wood floor and replaced with Karndean because the engineered floor was wearing badly (think weeks/months over years). We went for a tile effect on a concrete floor. It’s not massively cold, and we have no underfloor heating. We chose one of the upper ranges (da Vinci perhaps) for the hardwearingness. I agree that I don’t think it looks like stone, but I’m amazed by how many people are fooled. I really wanted the Karndean parquet wood effect but I was overruled

We have something similar to Karndean, it's meant to be a lot more hard-wearing than engineered wood and would deal better with say a dishwasher leak it similar.

Ours is wood effect luxury vinyl (as it's called nowadays) and it looks great. Looks better than the laminate I had in a previous house.

We have Karndean throughout black wood tile effect and although expensive we love it it looks great and washes really well honestly can’t fault it 👍🏻

We’ve had engineered oak down in kitchen for 5 years and it still looks good/the same as it did when it was laid

For a kitchen, karndean (Or a similar higher price point LVT) for sure. It's warm under foot, waterproof & if you drop something on it there is a good chance it won't break. The more expensive stuff doesn't have that plastic shine to it anymore but can be as expensive as real wood.

LVT wears much better than engineered wood which always ends up tatty & unlike real wood can't be sanded down. I guess it depends how long term you want it to be? My aunt has had amtico down for 10 years in her kitchen & it looks fresh. My cousin has just replaced her engineered wood after about 5 with karndean.

I went to a flooring place yesterday to discuss options for a kitchen diner.
I said I didn't want real wood because I LOVE my Shark steam mop on my current ceramic tiles, so I was thinking about Karndean.
And he told me I shouldn't use my shark on karndean!
Heartbroken

We have Karndean in our kitchen (slate effect) and we like it. Looks as good as new after a couple of years.

I've got karndean, one of the higher grades all through my downstairs.
I really don't like it, it's got a bit of a shine to it. I think wood would have looked much nicer.
However is very practical, definitely not cold and people do think it is wood.

I never mistake Karndean for wood - it is just expensive lino to me.

We are just going for cushionfloor for our kitchen as we aren't planning on staying here for ever. We have wood laminate that has seen much better days so anything is going to look better than that.

I use my steam mop on Karndean, I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to! It’s in my utility and downstairs toilet seems ok!

We have Harvey Maria in our hall and bathroom.

Pros: it’s warm, durable, waterproof (what would happen to engineered wood if you had a flood?), soluper easy to keep clean, the kids are unlikely to hurt themselves if they fall.

Cons: it doesn’t look like wood. I don’t think it could ever look like wood due to the planks butting right up to each other - for me that is the telltale sign of LVT.

I still love it though.

*super, no soluper!

Isn't there a cheaper version of Karndean like camio or something like that?

Another LVT option is Luvanto. Just fitted the bathroom with it. Water proof, underfloor heating 👍👍👍

Waterproof laminate?
www.quick-step.co.uk/en-gb/campaigns/waterproof-laminate

I've decided that it's just snobbery to not like modern lamintes - they're not solid wood, but then neither is engineered wood (just a veneer!). Accept them for what they are and if you like the design, functionality and price then go for it. :)

We have Karndean French Oak in the hallway, living areas and kitchen and love it. It does have a sheen but it's not cold, not noisy and it's easy to clean. It's been down 5 years and looks great.

We went for engineered wood in the playroom. It's been down 3 years and is stained and scratched to shit! Wish we'd just extended the Karndean.

Most flooring places have great big samples you can borrow and put on your floor to see how it looks. We were set on a different colour but when we saw the samples in situ the French Oak looked way better.