Please talk to me about flooring... very confused

[SecondBabyGirl]

So we are having almost all of our downstairs renovated apart from the lounge. Hallway, big L-shaped kitchen/living/diner, utility and toilet. Need new floors throughout.

Builder had based quote on having engineered wood flooring everywhere apart from utility and toilet which would be tiled. However this is pricing up to be a huge amount, partly because it’s a big area in total but also because everywhere will need levelling first (floors will all be ripped up/dug new drainage and pipes etc). My questions are:

• do I have any cheaper options? Considering tiles for the hallway. But is engineered wood the best hard floor to have in a kitchen/living/dining?

• how do I choose? I need something to be hard wearing, the living space will be a high traffic area and we have a spirited toddler plus new baby very soon.

• I want the flooring to be non-slip as possible, is this a thing?!

Sorry I know I am probably being very naive. We are having quite a big renovation and I am a bit overwhelmed with choices (also got to choose wall tiles, bathroom suites, floor, paint, carpet etc). I just want a floor that looks nice and clean and won’t cost a fortune but is quite resilient. Is that even a thing? Thanks!

I have gone round and round in circles on a similar dilemma.

LVT = Luxury Vinyl Tile - it is basically lino/vinyl but been rebranded and is now considered upmarket. Very popular. Waterproof and many people will tell you bombproof, though horror stories exist. Needs a completely level floor as it is very thin and glued directly to the subfloor. Brands include Karndean, Amtico, Moduleo, Quickstep Livyn. You can also get 'floating' vinyl, which is vinyl on boards and is fitted with tongue and groove (so not glued down). Floating floors are more tolerant of a less level floor. Prices vary from £30 / sqm - £80 / sqm which is product only and doesn't include fitting or leveling of subfloor.

Laminate - basically fake wood. It is a picture of wood on top of layers of ply with a wear layer on top. The higher end stuff has grooves etc that line up with the picture (LVT can be grooved but it won't reflect the picture). I have spoken to a lot of floor places and Quickstep is generally recognised as top spec for laminate, they are £20-£30 / sqm (shop around, you can generally get deals online) for their top spec stuff. Quickstep is water resistant, others aren't. You can get very very cheap laminate. I have done a lot of stress testing on Quickstep laminate and it is hard stuff to scratch. Other brands scratch easily. Laminate will chip if something drops on it from height. You will also need underlay for laminate which starts at £3 / sqm upto £8 / sqm. Fitting starts at around £15 / sqm.

Engineered wood - is a layer of wood from 2m + stuck on top of layers of ply. The logic of this is that it can then be used on top of underfloor heating, which solid wood can't (heat and moisture cause wood to change size and shape drastically). The depth of the layer of wood itself determines how many times you can sand it down. It can be oiled or lacquered. Lacquer is harder wearing initiailly but harder than oil to 'patch up'. You will not sand down often. It is expensive and exceptionally messy. Wood does not like water... so spills etc need to be cleaned up quickly. For that reason it is often avoided in the kitchen. Wood is also soft (though I am told Bamboo is much much harder) so scratches and dents easily. However, a scratch or dent in wood can look natural, whereas a scratch in laminate or LVT looks crap and cant be fixed without replacing the board. Prices start at £30 / sqm but can go to £££.

If you have a search for my post (please send me pictures of your engineered wood) you'll see lots of great feedback and some photos of stress tests I did on various samples.

There are pros and cons to all and no easy choice. I am going to be putting 100 sqm of flooring through my groundfloor including a new kitchen and I am very very stuck. I would love Engineered Wood, if you get the right stuff it is simply beautiful but it is ££ (£7k before we've even considered fitting) and I'm terrified we'll wreck it. It is very likely we'll go for Quickstep Impressive laminate. Afraid I can't get onboard the LVT train as it is just as expenisve as Engineered Wood but I think looks faker than Laminate and was essentially just some very clever marketing that turned the cheapest product on the market to the most expensive. They are exceptionally practical though!

That being said, I don't want to tske away from people who have LVT floors as they do look beautiful when laid. It is the principle that I am stuck on.

OP I’ve done 3 renovation projects now and I totally understand the stress of the decision making (not wanting to make the ‘wrong’ choice when spending so much) and it sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate.

My advice? There is no such thing as the perfect, or the ‘correct’ choice. If you are having difficulty deciding, it’s because they are all good options in their own way. Whatever you go with will be great. And once your baby comes along you will stop even noticing what your floor looks!

I would avoid tiles. I absolutely hated mine when my dc were little. They are cold, and unforgivingly hard.

My mil has had amtico (like karndean but a different brand) in her kitchen for 25 years. It’s a high traffic area in her house and looks immaculate. She took out a built in cupboard last year and had to get the floor patched to match the existing floor and I honestly cannot spot any difference. The only down side is that it’s a bit old fashioned now

With little people in your home, give some consideration to staining. If you get samples, pour ribena and ketchup on to see how resistant they are.

Avoid tiles! We moved into a lovely house but the kitchen is covered with massive tiles and they are FREEZING to walk/stand on, and if you drop anything on them it smashes. In our previous house I put in a tile effect laminate (done myself, bought from B&Q) and it was brilliant. Everyone thought it was tiling, but it was warm and had some give in it. It was also incredibly hard wearing. I had it there for 15 years before we moved and it still looked great.

We've just put engineered wood down in our new house dining room, and it looks really good. Stones stuck to the bottom of shoes will scratch it though. (same flooring in the lounge has a big scratch in now from an oblivious delivery man).

But avoid tiles! Fine on walls but so cold and hard on the floor.

Thanks everyone, some very very helpful advice!

I'm definitely going to order some samples but I felt like I wanted to narrow things down before going mad and getting numerous samples sent. This is helping a lot.

I think I've ruled out engineered wood flooring in the hallway - we are in and out a lot and have a double buggy but no porch so the floor will frequently get wet/muddy/etc and I have very low standards when it comes to cleaning so I can't have anything that needs water wiping up immediately. In fact, for these reasons alone it sounds like I'm maybe better off ruling out wood altogether. The oak worktops in the kitchen are going to be enough of a PITA as it is (we want quartz but can't really afford it, which seems to be the mantra of this renovation project!).

Part of the reason for my initial panic is the cost so it doesn't sound like karndean or amtico are going to solve that issue either. Builder explicitly told me that amtico would increase the quote, not decrease it.

So I'm now thinking ceramic tiles in hallway, utility and toilet (hardwearing, waterproof, not that much cheaper than wood but definitely more practical). Then something else in the kitchen/living/dining L-shaped room.

It seems like my current options for the L-shaped area are:

1. Bamboo - water resistant, more hard wearing than wood?
2. Lower end LVT if I can find something nice around the £30 per sqm mark?
3. Quick step laminate - I hadn't heard of this and had originally ruled out laminate as looking a bit cheap but this sounds good and I like that it's water resistant.

Main conclusion is that flooring is bloody expensive and I'm half tempted to just buy one of those huge rolls of plastic vinyl that you cut to size and glue that down everywhere :-D

I have underfloor heating with ceramic tiles. Absolutely not cold! Horses for courses though! Laying tiles is often more labour intensive.

The cheapest solution here is JL own brand!

I would go with the all wood and find something else I can cut back. That’s just me

But I definitely would not use wood in bathrooms. It can leave Urine stain (although i am not familiar with engineered wood)

Sounds like a good plan with the tiles for hallway cloakroom and utility. You can get engineered wood for £35 per square metre so if you can afford that definitely go with that is my advice.. will look so much nicer and really isn’t that hard to keep clean unless you go for like snow white colour...a nice blonde oak engineered wood would look great...

Here's some photos of my LVT - it's Polyflor, just in case it helps. Does come in different shades and formats too.

If you plan on mixing floor, make sure they do the math and make sure it is all leveled. It make sweeping easier. The people who did our kitchen floor has to add a floor edging strip, whatever it is called, because the kitchen floor is higher than the rest of the house

I am just starting to look at kitchens and one thing we will definitely be doing is avoiding oak worktops - so, so hard to keep looking good. They stain, they warp, they scratch. 100% going for granite, corian or quartz this time

For floor we currently have tiles over under-floor heating, which is lovely and warm - until it breaks and you can't get under. We also dropped something within the first week and cracked a tile - I was gutted

We are looking at going with high quality LVT, including having the matching skirting so we never have to paint again! Similar to you, we have the hall & loo then big L-shaped kitchen/living/dining area

Pre-sealed engineered Wood isn't suitable for wet areas as water can get in between the planks. We have engineered wood in our dining area but bought unsealed and blather Ed it with polyurethane varnish, making sure it went down into the gaps. A year on, there are a couple of fruit stains and water marks behind the sink but they will be easy enough to sand down and re-touch, as we decided against a stain. That wouldn't have been possible with pre-fin8shed boards.

And we do have sheet vinyl in our main bathroom. Much easier!

Tiles are best for kitchens and bathrooms. Wood is a low maintenance option, we had oak floorboards in my last house which worked out cheaper than basic floorboards with engineered wood on top (complete remodel) but we finished them ourselves which took hours. Cheaper options are laminate and carpet

I know the feeling OP, we're just doing a similar project.
Floors - have had a tiled kitchen in the past with a laminate/engineered/fake parquet floor hall which was peeling but had lasted at least 25 years. No underfloor heating and I didn't have a problem with the kitchen tiles but I do always wear slippers, kids never complained. Had some Karndean which looked nice, it is very dependent on fit quality.

We're going for ceramic tiles throughout an open plan hall and living/eating/kitchen area with underfloor heating. Felt we couldn't risk wood due to hall/kitchen.
Have had wooden kitchen tops before, definitely wouldn't have again. Too much work to maintain. We'll probably go for boring old laminate this time...

Good luck with it all. There's been some great advice on here. Thanks everyone.

Be very very careful with engineered wood. Check the thickness of the veneer. Anything too cheap is going to have a tiny layer. Pay more and you get more!

I have the same Quickstep waterproof laminate throughout my downstairs (including hall, utility, kitchen, bathroom etc) and I really like it - cheaper than engineered wood, warmer/softer than tiles, and so far (I've only had it a few years) it seems waterproof and hard wearing.

Oh, I forgot to mention - I have a downstairs bedroom too as well as the sitting and dining rooms, and because I wanted the same flooring throughout, I decided not to go for LVT (it felt too weird having vinyl in bedrooms/living spaces, where as the laminate feels more like real wood).

LVT all the way. We have amtico downstairs which is pricier but I wanted the herringbone style. They have cheaper options, we got Karndean in our bedroom which looks fab and an even cheaper one in the kitchen. So easy to fit as well and easy to maintain

I have Quickstep Impressive Patterns in my kitchen/dining/living space. It's really practical and I was totally anti-laminate but I love it. Good luck!