Karndean in living room?

[Astrabees]

We have some ancient engineered wood in our hallway and what was the children's play room (now grown up) we are re decorating the play room to turn it in to a yoga practice space. DH says we need to sort out the flooring and I agree, so on a strict replace basis that would mean the playroom, hall and downstairs cloak room would have new floor. Our sitting room carpet is not too bad but we had to do a bit of obvious patching when we replaced our fireplace last year and it does look a bit odd. I'm wondering about having Karndean in there too. I'm not thinking about tiles but one of the warmer wood effect patterns, with a big rug in front of the fire. We are both concerned it might look a bit cold, but it would be so much easier to look after, especially as we have recently acquired a new dog.
Does anyone have experience in having K-arndean in their living room? We are going up to the main showroom near Evesham on Saturday to have a good look at the options.

We had Karndean all through our last house and have it in most of our new house too. It’s lovely in the living room and I bought a nice soft shaggy rug for the centre of the room.
We went to Evesham to choose ours as well. Will try and attach pictures.

I have it all downstairs, very similar to Missy and I love it. so much easier!

I've just come across some pictures in an estate agents listing for some new houses with Karndean or similar all the way through downstairs, it does look rather nice.

We have amtico put in last year throughout downstairs and it looks fantastic. When I get home I will post a picture. It's very forgiving with children and cats.

I think you need to see it in the flesh.

I have karndean wood effect (the top of the price range ones - the texture and look does vary through the price bands) in my bathrooms and lacquered engineered wood in my living room. Whilst karndean is very nice and practical in the rooms where there is a lot of water and real wood isn’t a good idea, I wouldn’t have it in the living room. When all said and done, you CAN tell it isn’t wood. It does feel and look like (very nice) lino and I don’t want that in my lovely living room.

FWIW I have a couple of big dogs (heavy with scratchy, blunt claws) and the matte lacquered finish on the engineered wood flooring is unscathed. I wouldn’t get an oiled finish as I don’t think it’s as durable.

We've got it in kitchen hall and dining room but I like my carpet living room. If we were open plan would probably go for it but put big rugs down, which kind of negates the point of it...

We've just had karndean da vinci molten in our lounge diner and I love it. If you don't want something pretending to be wood but want a similar look it's great.

I did not love the price. If we hadn't wanted that specific tile then there are many, equally good, cheaper options.

If you are going for fake wood or stone then you need to see it- quality varies.

You can save a lot by ordering online but it's hard to get fitters for the glue down stuff. Rigid click LVT is cheaper to fit.

I've got Karndean in my kitchen and upstairs bath/shower rooms, it looks great there, it is just the question of whether I'd like it in the living room. our engineered wood was good quality but it has been down a long time and suffered in the early days from our then (now long deceased) dog scratching it with his claws. Subsequent dogs weed on it . New dog is fully continent but she has the sort of feet that are hard to get free of mud, and the light coloured carpet is suffering.

I have two large dogs, and Karndean wood effect all through downstairs. It has lasted really well, is super easy to keep clean, and looks far better with time than the engineered wood in our previous house did. It is also far less noisy with claws skittering on it

Photos of amtico throughout downstairs. We used to have engineered oak in our old house and while it looked lovely in scratched badly and water stained it too.

Photos of amtico throughout downstairs. We used to have engineered oak in our old house and while it looked lovely in scratched badly and water stained it too.

I would go for wood personally. Karndean is very practical but it doesn't have the warmth or feel of wood. It is basically laminate after all.

We have Karndean in living room (with big rug in middle) and a cheaper one in bathroom and dd's bedroom (again with rugs). They look like wood and visitors don't believe it isn't wood! It's practical, easy to sweep and mop. We decided on it when we had our dd and wanted to be able to keep the house hygienically clean. We have real wood in the cellar and that has become hard work as it tends to buckle etc

We went to the Karndean main showroom; in Evesham at the weekend and were quite impressed with what was on offer. We came home with a few samples and will probably go with "Honey Oak" which isn't a honey colour at all, but looks quite contemporary and will go with our furniture and decorations. Also visited Jennings oriental rug shop in Tewkesbury on our way home, and fell for a very beautiful Afghan rug, so ended up being an expensive day out, but at least I know what I'm doing now.

The honey oak is what we have throughout our house downstairs and it’s great. Utterly bulletproof (we have dogs and small children) and nobody notices it’s not real.

Have had Karndean throughout our ground floor for the last 20 years! Getting to the point of needing replacement now, some sunlight fading by the patio doors, a couple of small cracks here and there. But has been utterly bomb proof and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

thank you for the reassurance - you always wonder whether you have made the right choice. Good to hear that you have honey oak, Fenella Maxwell. It will be a little whil before it is down as we need to have the cloakroom refitted and do a bit of decorating too.