LVT oak flooring- show me your pictures!

[newyorky09]

I need to choose an LVT (Kardean/Westex/polyflor etc) floor ASAP for my kitchen diner and would love to see your photos of similar floors please! Am thinking of an oak colour something fairly rich in colour to contrast with white walls. Thanks!

Taken from conservatory into kitchen, hence it darkening at it goes away from the light.
Polyflor Camaro, just checked the invoice but it's just a handwritten one from the fitter and doesn't say style.

I'm interested in Polyflor Camaro but read some reviews saying it's faded in the sunshine. Any problems with that @Chasingsquirrels?

Hmm, well the conservatory has been down about 18 months and I wouldn't say there is any noticeable fading.
The hall & downstairs loo has been around about 10 years, but gets almost no sunlight. I've just had a look at the end bit by the window and it doesn't look any different to the rest of it to me.

This is polyfloor (stick down version). I have it throughout the entire downstairs, its grand so far, about 4 years in.

Click lock for us from Benchmarx - I love it

Thanks for the pics- all lovely floors!

Our basement is polyflor too, we chose to have style strips between to more closely echo the original Victorian boards on the ground floor (second pic).

Sorry to butt in, my son has worn his laminate away and I'm looking to replace it with something more hardwearing - is Kardean / Amtico better ?

I originally wanted amtico or karndean but our fitter said polyflor was half the price and more hard wearing. It's also made (or was then, haven't checked since) in an environmentally considerate way.

Interesting - i've heard other people say PolyFlor is a lot cheaper, but hadn't heard about it being more hard wearing.

Did you have to leave an expansion gap and/or take skirting boards up? That seems to be the huge advantage to some of the floors to me, for people considering changing the floor only rather than a whole renovation!

I've had 2 lots of (the same) Polyflor laid about 10 years apart.

Hallway & downstairs loo, about 11 years ago - skirting boards left in place and tiles cut up to it. You can see the gap if you look closely, and I think the tiles have shrunk very slightly over the years.

Kitchen, utility & conservatory, about 18m ago - laid as part of a kitchen refit, some of the old ceramic tiles had been laid upto the skirting utility) others had the skirting put on top afterwards (conservatory added 17 years previous) and the kitchen was a mix.
We removed all of the skirting as part of removing the old tiles and so I could restain it.
Then LVT fitted to the walls and skirting replaced on top, but fitted upto the kitchen units and clear silicone filler into the edge.

The skirting-on-top does look better, but I don't think it's enough to remove & replace all the skirting if you aren't doing that anyway.

I've got laminate in my dining room which was here when we moved and that has a beading strip which I don't like.

Someone else asked about fading. I remembered that I've got a few left over tiles from the kitchen refit under my bed, which are 18m old and have been in the dark. Just taken one and put on top of various places and the laid stuff does seem very slightly faded, but barely noticable and it doesn't appear to be any variance between very and not at all sunny places.

Following this thread for ideas!
Has anyone got an oak coloured floor with minimal ‘wood grain’ ? Not real wood.

Yes I don't really like beading either! I was thinking of Amtico and Karndean precisely because they say that they don't shrink and can therefore be cut right up to skirting without any gaps at all and no need for beading/silicone.

Though as I would have to take the silicone beading off the current skirting and plinth, as I have vinyl floors at the moment, so I'm not sure how easy that would be to remove, whether it will take the paint or finish off, or whether it will just somehow look rubbish like that anyway! I guess it could always be painted again one day, but painting wasn't on my list of immediate jobs...

We are in the process of reflooring most of our list with Amtico, having had Karndean throughout the downstairs for the last 24 years.

The only reason we have switched to Amtico is because Karndean was hard to get hold of during lockdown and we liked the look of the Amtico oak planks better anyway.

We have gone for 'canopy oak' and so far we have done the master bedroom, en-suite, landing, stairs and dining room.

We will also be doing the lounge, the rest of the bedrooms and the main bathroom so the entire upper floor is the same throughout.

Here is a pic of the bedroom and the en-suite - photo bomb courtesy of the cat!

I'm interested in the colours people choose for the oak flooring, as it seems to come in so many subtle variations!

I have a lot of oak veneer furniture, the sort of scandinavian look (not quite Ikea but not far off!). Things like John Lewis Abacus series - desk, big shelving units, bookcases, kitchen table, accessories/chair legs/etc.

I think one of the samples (amtico honey oak) actually matches quite well, although it has a dark patch on one side. But I don't really know what to do for the best with all the oak veneer around. Try to match it? But then the whole room looks made of wood. I have a big rug, and would get some more for other places, so that would break it up a bit. Or I could go for a darker colour, but I'm not sure any really look quite right - they seem a bit ashy, or orangey, or something, compared to the furniture.

So does it look silly to have an oak-looking floor, with loads of oak-looking furniture? I've looked at a few pictures, and sometimes it seems to look ok, but it's never quite the sort of situation I have. I'm not keen on anything other than wood-look-alike though.

Polyflor Camero throughout downstairs. If it’s faded I haven’t noticed.

This is ours. It's mid lined oak karndean - parquet in the kitchen and planks in the hallway.

So does it look silly to have an oak-looking floor, with loads of oak-looking furniture?

It can do...what about a much darker wood floor? I think dark wood floors look great with light coloured walls and it won't look as matchy with the furniture then

Yes I wondered about trying a different colour, but I'm not sure what! The room is fairly small and is the whole kitchen/living area, light walls, lots of windows, most things in sort of grey/light oak/white colours. There is an ugly dark-wood-effect worktop, which I'd like to change eventually, so don't want anything close to that either. I do like the look of the light oak best, but wonder what I can do to mitigate the matchy look.

I tried the room visualiser on the Amtico site, and it's not so bad as long as there's a rug etc in the sitting area; kitchen has an oak (veneer) table and desk though. But maybe I can put a rug or something under those too, and in the corridor. Or maybe I can change the kitchen table. It's got a cheap light grey/oyster coloured carpet in most of the room at the moment which is hard to keep clean and is quite rippled and worn looking in places, so amtico would be much easier in that sense.

@WyldStallions

Our basement is polyflor too, we chose to have style strips between to more closely echo the original Victorian boards on the ground floor (second pic).

I really like this! What is it called?

Does anyone have Amtico in either New England Oak, or Traditional Oak (or maybe honey oak?)

I thought I'd settled on New England Oak, but then I saw a photo from one of the flooring stores that make the wood grain, knots etc look really obvious, and I"m not so sure now. I liked the smoothness of the honey oak that had much more subtle grain, but the shop said it had more of an orange/golden tint, and I'm not sure that would match. They said New England oak and Traditional oak were more neutral. I chose New England based on the colour, but now I wonder if traditional would be better - does anyone have that and know if it has lots of grain/knots? Or do you have New England, and find that actually the grain is fairly subtle? (other flooring stores photos looked more subtle, so it's one of those things that might be hard to tell until it's actually installed!). thanks

What floor did you go for in the end?