Why am I being told not to like the floor?

[user1958493]

Please help me understand this.

I have moved house and am redecorating the whole house. I want to put tiles down through the entrance, kitchen, cloakroom and utility room. My parents (dad is doing a lot of the work in the house for me) are telling me this is a bad idea.
They aren't really giving me a solid reason why, just a few mentions of "people don't have large areas tiled", "will be cold", "if one gets damaged you can't replace it"

Is it a bad idea to tile an area like this? I dont know if this makes a different but I have 2 kids under 5.

Thank you

I have covered the tiles on my kitchen floor with digitally printed flotex. If you drop china or glass on a tiled floor the thing explodes like a grenade. Its a swine to clear up and dangerous for my dog. I guess I only break one or two things a year but when it happens its a real issue. I wouldn't tile again and if I moved into a house with a tiled floor I would cover them.
i don't think you are being told not to like tiled floors...but your parents are pointing out that they may not be the easiest to live with in the UK with two small children...amd the reasons they are giving....well two of them....ARE real reasons.

I’d not have large areas of tiles unless they were original (Minton tiled floor etc) or I also had underfloor heating. If neither of these apply then I agree, go for LVT (vinyl). Reasons for me are cold, can crack/ chip, some constantly look grubby, grouting can go manky, things smash when you drop them and they are difficult to alter if you need to move radiators etc.

Why are you so set on putting tiles down OP? As your dad has said they are very cold (unless you are planning under floor heating), and as pp have said they can get very slippery, and anything you drop will smash which is not a good combination with two small children.

We have 60cm square ceramic high glaze grey tiles from the front door down the hall through the kitchen right to the back door with an inset oversized ‘doormat’ (like at shop entrances). It’s bloody wonderful and extra bloody wonderful
when recently mopped and shiny 💕

It goes over some floorboards and mostly concrete but that’s the hardest bit and we have said as they are slightly separating from the grout there (12 years after)that we will concrete all the way under when we redo.

It’s not cold because some sort of underfloor insulation features but I can’t say what though I can find out.

My parents' house, lived in for four decades before moving to assisted living last year, had the entire downstairs tiled, albeit on top of underfloor heating, which made it very comfy and even toasty in winter. Very easy to clean and I don't recall a single tile cracking in the entire period. No super duper luxury tiles either. Obvs still a good idea to lay in a small store of replacement tiles just in case.

We rented a house in Spain with tiles everywhere including the living room and with a 2 year old I was constantly stressed about them falling and banging their head. I would not choose tiles in the house with small children in the “running areas”

After a house fire we had the chance to have the whole house renewed internally. As we have a dog, we chose the entire ground floor to be tiled, and have rugs. Best thing we ever did! Easy to keep clean, hard-wearing, no worries about carpet stains. We chose wood-effect tiles, so it looks like oak without the need to maintain it like real wood. I would never, ever, want to have a carpeted ground floor again.

You just have to go with what you want in the end. Your dad isn’t wrong about any of those things - they can be cold, they can chip, and they aren’t as common as other floor coverings, but if you like them you like them, and I think they look great. We just have the kitchen and utility tiled, with underfloor heating. I love the way they look, and for aesthetics there’s no comparison with vinyl which always looks cheap to me, even though I know it isn’t. I don’t drop a lot of stuff though, so maybe I’m more forgiving of a hard surface.

Is it because your Dad doesn’t want to tile it? Some of the other options are much easier to lay! I think it’s pretty common to tile through the kitchen and hall. Carpet is a no, proper wood is generally a no in kitchens so what are you left with? Some sort of vinyl or laminate? I’d go for tiles, unless you’ve got an old draughty house they’re not that cold, they’re easy to clean and natural stone in particular looks fab. Kids generally aren’t running around in the kitchen

My parent's house has tiled kitchen and I'm really jealous of them! Easy to clean and none have broken (they've been in place for well over 20 years). It is cold in winter, but it is fine if you wear slippers. No injuries to children that I can recall. They probably would be dangerous if playing in there, but kids don't play in kitchens / utility rooms.

They are incredibly slippy when wet though, so I probably wouldn't put them in an entrance hallway unless you are a completely "shoes off" household.

If you (not your parents or other guests) find it chilly, get lots of cheap area rugs.

Yes, add some fabric to the slippery floor surface, that will help.

Confused as to why you would spend a fortune on a floor then cover it up with cheap rugs.

Years back there was a tiled kitchen and hall floor in a house I bought. It was a nightmare. Get a tile effect decent laminate.

but kids don't play in kitchens

Kids run everywhere.

Cold, they chip easily, dangerous for small children

Not their house, not their floor. We’ve recently move into a house with tiles in the kitchen and it does make it cold. Problem is l would like a tiled hall, as carpets often get trashed in that area and that’s how our hall would have been originally, as it’s an older house

I have tiles in my kitchen that I want to replace

We are tiled throughout. I like it. HOWEVER, we also have underfloor heating.
I wouldn’t particularly like it without underfloor heating - it is cold underfoot.

Having said that for entrance hall, kitchen and utility maybe this isn’t such a big issue.

We also have a toddler and it no issue for him, but again, he runs around in bare feet or socks so would be cold without the floor heated

I’ll add, our tiles have a rough/natural stone texture surface (but still very modern looking) and are in no way ever slippy.

They work in hot climates but I find when I see houses where there is a huge area of hard tiling throughout the ground floor it always looks wrong and awful. Especially if they are the same sort of tiles typically found in kitchens or bathrooms. They look weirdly clinical and I pity the poor person that has to spend hours mopping and polishing them, especially if they are glossy, as every footprint shows. Obviously they are washable in a way that carpets are not, but don't confuse that with low maintenance.

I love real stone, terracotta, natural wood, slate, but bright shiny bathroom or kitchen tiles creeping through into someone's living area is grim.

And they can be very slippery when wet.

LVT is lovely, much softer and warmer underfoot. Also durable, not easily damaged by water, and easy to clean. You can get it in tile effect.

No I wouldn't either. Especially with young children. For all the reasons folk have said.

I have my entrance, garden room, downstairs toilet, kitchen and utility tiled.

It's great. It's smart and do easy to keep clean. I love it.

A friend has tiles through kitchen/dining area and utility room. They have underfloor heating AFAIK, as it has never felt cold in their house.
I have lino, but it's old lino and horrible to clean (needs to be scrubbed).

Not unusual at all and much easier to clean.
So it makes sense to do that in the areas you describe.

It's not really unusual, I'd say it's the norm in a lot of Welsh houses, all of my Welsh friends have those red tiles in the kitchen and hall. Slate tiles throughout the hall I have seen a lot. Original or replica Victorian tiles through a hall and kitchen are beautiful. I did have tiles in my last kitchen and that has put me off, the floor was icy cold and as others have said, things smashed practically every other day, and we had more than one swollen had incident from toddlers falling on it. So that really put me off.

OTOH, my in laws think anything other than beige carpet everywhere is 'odd'. They really tried to talk us out of restoring our original wooden floors saying it would be too cold, it isn't. I have come across this anti everything but carpet attitude a lot from the same generation.