Would you use (luxury) vinyl flooring in the lounge?

[NewBlueShoe]

Trying to decide on flooring for the lounge (all of downstairs really). We actually live the feel of carpets but with messy small children we've decided to go for 'hard' flooring.

We don't have the option of underfloor heating. We don't want tiles. Can't afford real wood.

So it's laminate (probably Amtico) or vinyl (probably Comfytex Delux). I want laminate but DH is concerned about leaks/waterproofing. It's also a lot more expensive. Is Vinyl cheap and nasty?

Luxury vinyl suxh as karndean or amtico is good stuff and not cheap. I had it laid in my small bathroom, price per sqm is quite.high. it looks as good as it look the day it was laid and that must be 4 or 5 years now. I like it, its not cold it's great and will have it when i next do my kitchen too.

I thonk in a lounge it is a good option with a rug especially with small kids.

We have Amtico throughout much of the ground floor (hall, loo, utility, kitchen/diner/TV room) but I draw the line at the living-room.
Want a nice thick carpet in at least one of the downstairs rooms!

Had not come across Amtico until a couple of years ago but have to admit that for what it is...... it is ok.

We have karndean, it's much nicer than laminate

We have Kardean in the lounge with a rug. I occasionally hanker for the softening warmth that a carpet provides but with plenty of other textiles in the room overall I am pleased with our choice. It looks as good as the day it was laid ten years ago and has been great for cleaning up after pets and dc.

We have Karndean vinyl planks throughout downstairs (open plan) except for the living room end which DH insisted on carpeting. To be fair to him it does mark out the space as being separate but I still maintain that a large rug would have done the same and felt just as cosy. But then a large rug would have effectively been paying twice to cover the same area of floor.

Anyway, the Karndean is bloody brilliant. It is easy to clean, it doesn't easily scratch or mark so it still looks great five years on, it doesn't feel cold, (like tiles might have) we even have underfloor heating under one section. We had a leak in the kitchen which would have ruined laminate, it just mopped up. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

I believe they now do a sort of laminate which I can't comment on, we had to have the floor boards covered with ply and then a levelling compound put over it to smooth out the wonky floors before the planks were glued down. The benefit is if one plank is damaged, (the only thing I can think of that might do this is something burning it like maybe a fire ember or possibly leaving an iron face down on it for hours) it can be easily replaced without having to pull up the whole floor or a larger section.

We have quickstep luxury vinyl and it's great!

We have Amtico in the hall and kitchen downstairs and it's brilliant, we will put the same in the dining room and living room eventually with a rug or two.

@NewBlueShoe Just to clarify, Amtico (and Karndean etc) are not laminate but LVT 😉

We don't like fitted carpets and haven't had one in our living room since a previous house that we sold in 2007. We much prefer the look of a wood floor with huge rug(s), but if - for whatever reason - a real wood floor was out of the question, we'd go for Karndean or Amtico.

Having previously put Fired Earth limestone in a huge (36' long) kitchen/breakfast room and had issues with a leaky puppy and the grout (🙄), I wouldn't choose tiles again and definitely not in a living room unless they were flags in a period property.

Currently we have Karndean in our hallway and plan on extending this into the kitchen and quite probably the living room so it's the same flooring throughout. Our rugs which we've collected over the years are fairly massive (4m x 3m at least) so even in a large room most of the floor will be covered anyway and for us, living rurally with dogs it makes sense to not have fitted carpets anywhere 😆

We have Moduleo LVT planks in our living room. They look great and are scratch and water resistant.

we are in the process of replacing the laminate in our lounge with LVT. It’s softer than laminate but much cleaner than carpet. DH is from a country where they rarely have carpets and he doesn’t like them, we only have it on the stairs and landing

Thanks @LibertyLily I was definitely confused - because of the price 😱

The amtico looks really good tbf. It's described as 'amtico wood' - is it a roll like I imagine vinyl to be or is it different do you know?

I think it will look great op

I have Karndean in my kitchen and love it. Also was clearly not bothered about waterproofing.

If I wanted hard floors I'd rather have Karndean than laminate.

We have cushion vinyl flooring (tarkett, wood effect) at the moment. It's been great. Very easy to clean and things don't break that easily compared to tiles. Less cold too.

My Karndean really looks like wood and came as strips.

You need an experienced fitter and a levelled floor to make it look good.

I had some decent cushion vinyl. It was brilliant. Missed it when we moved.

Are you sure you don’t want carpet? So long as you don’t let them run around with slices of pizza in their hand it will be ok in a lounge?

@NewBlueShoe we are looking at Amtico for our lounge & the flooring company told me that if a bit gets damaged they can just replace that piece as it's laid individually. We are thinking of going for the herringbone type effect. The area we need doing is 14sqm & we've had one quote for £2.5k but this was for the signature range. We are looking at the form range now to see how the cost compares.

Thanks for the info everyone, really helpful.

We are choosing flooring for a new build so it will be levelled and laid professionally 👍

Have Moduleo LVT in our kitchen / diner / family room which extends in to our hall. I’d originally planned one day I’d extend it into the living room at some point with a big rug but won’t bother now. I’m not mad keen on it tbh, whilst it doesn’t scratch it kind of scuffs easily and is annoying, I also think it looks a bit plasticky over a large space, kind of like laminate when I was going for a more luxury high end look. I’d go for wood / engineered wood if I had the option again.

We have quickstep, similar to amtico I think. I love it.

Also have real wood in one room but to be honest it doesn’t look much different and it was so much more expensive. Definitely not worth it for me.

I have Amtico in the kitchen, lounge, hall and bathroom, and now wish I'd had it in the bedroom too (small flat). So easy to clean and looks nice and never gets grubby the way carpet does.

It's not a vinyl roll, but tiles/planks, depending on what you choose. You get boxes of about 10 planks and they'll calculate how much you need and get the closest number of boxes, so you might end up with some left over that you keep as spares. I had long wide planks for a wood look that were laid right next to each other, and squarer tiles in charcoal in the bathroom, with strips of light grey between. You can have smaller or narrower planks, you can get herringbone pattern with small tiles, you can get fancy extra bits to make a design, etc - lots of choice. The Amtico site has a thing where you can take photos of your room, and then choose flooring, colour, pattern, etc and it will overlay it on the photo so you can get an idea of what it might look like. Though I guess with a new build you won't have furniture in yet anyway so it won't be the same - but you could try it in your current house with your current furniture.

I do have lots of other rugs and textiles, as most of my furniture was also light wood coloured, and I find the whole thing looks a bit 'woody', but I have got used to it! And cooler in the summer and just smarter looking I think, as carpet (especially in new builds) is often quite cheap and you can easily get feet marks/paths, dirt, etc if you don't keep on top of it.

I’ve gone a step further due to badly trained pets and got SPC throughout the downstairs and it’s bloody wonderful. Everything wipes clean and I bought a couple of washable rugs from rugable I think it is and they’re great too. Life is too short to be worrying about what the kids have got in their hands in the posh front room.