Ceramic / porcelain tiles in a living / kitchen area - can it look ok?

[PeterPomegranate]

We are planning a rear extension with an open plan kitchen / living area at the back. You know the kind of thing.

Husband wants under floor heating in this room and he wants to run it off the boiler (not electric) which means it will be hotter and he thinks not suitable for engineered wood. I would like engineered wood in the hall / front room where we will have radiators.

So, in this back room would it look ok or weird if we had ceramic / porcelain tiles across the whole open space including the living area as well as the kitchen? I was wondering about medium sized hexagon tiles in 2 or 3 plain colours and have a gradual transition between one pattern in the kitchen area and a different (simpler maybe all one colour?) pattern on the living room side. And perhaps a rug on that side.

What do you think? Honesty please!

Here are a couple of examples of tiles I’ve found online (hope the links work):

applebys-tiles.co.uk/apps/omega-search/?type=product%2C&q=Bold+medium+hexagon+

www.britishceramictile.com/all?term=Lily+hex&filters%5Buse%5D=floor&page=1

Thank you.

There will be a dining table and a sofa / tv on the ‘living’ side.

I wanted the look of wood in my kitchen / dining / living room but knew it would get trashed as we are messy cooks!
I have wood effect porcelain throughout in 90cm random planks. It looks great and much to my surprise it doesn't look odd where it meets the real oak herringbone parquet in the hall.
We have an outdoor rug in the living area to make that feel more like a room.
We don't have UFH heating but this would be suitable for laying over it I think.

Thank you @WhereDoesThisToiletGo

Do you have a link to the tiles please? It’s interesting that it looks ok next to the real wood as that would have been a concern for me.

You can get engineered wood which will work okay with wet underfloor heating. Tiles are always going to conduct and retain heat better than wood though. Wood, engineered or not, isn't great for a kitchen in my mind as it doesn't like getting wet. Lots of people are fine with it though.

I've seen hexagon tiles look amazing laid in that transitional style. My concerns would be of cost and practicality. The first tiles above are £100+ per meter for what will be a big area. There are also 50 odd tiles in each m2 to individually lay. You will need a good tiler to do this and they will charge you for what will be a right pita job.

And each of those 50 tiles will have 6 grout lines going in different directions. Which you will want to keep clean.

Are you going to have a patio or terrace outside of the open plan room? If so, continuity of flooring with that may be as important as with your hall.

Thanks @nomdeguerre those are really helpful thoughts.

I would be concerned about actual wood in a kitchen area too.

Cost is certainly a factor. At face value I can’t see why the tiles on one site are so much more expensive but I haven’t seen them in real life so maybe it’s obvious. And the laying of the tiles. And the cleaning. Hmmm.

I don’t know yet what the patio would be like.

But what else would look ok in the space? Gah.

I think the hexagons would look great - just thought I'd highlight some other considerations. Im having hexagons on my new bathroom floor but not sure I would have dared go with them in such a big space.

There are huge markups on tiles. If you are buying a lot, try to negotiate a discount.

As a PP said there are some really lovely wood effect porcelain tiles. Also lots of stone effect, concrete etc porcelain which are really realistic. Probably not as decorative or interesting as the hexagons though. Again, in my house I'm going for oversized porcelain which looks like limestone in my open plan area and out onto my patio.

Very big tiles can also be expensive to buy and lay - not as much grout to clean though.

Once it goes down you aren't going to want to replace that floor so make sure it's something you can live with

For big spaces, you might want to have a look at buying tiles in Europe and getting them shipped over. It is likely to work out cheaper for high quality tiles. I would give Tile Expert based in Malta as an example of a European stockist but there are others. Delivery is very pricey but often worth it for the savings if buying 50m2 or something. No good for small areas or samples though.

This is my wood effect porcelain
www.mystonefloor.com/product/sandy-oak-porcelain-wood-planks/

It looks a bit orange in that photo but it's actually a nicer colour!

Thanks @wheredoesthistoiletgo that looks good.

Have spoken to my husband again today and asked him if he's absolutely wedded to underfloor heating or whether we could have radiators and tile in the kitchen area and engineered wood in the rest of the room. He's open minded. We will continue to discuss.

Thank you for comments and feedback. Any more still very welcome.

If you are mixing tiles and engineered wood, you could equally have underfloor heating as well as radiators.

Not many walls and a lot of space to heat in open plan. You might need a number of big radiators and have the wall space for them. Underfloor heating might be the best option - although it will cost a bit more.