Flooring for kitchen extension

[AppropriateAdult]

Bear with me, I'll try to make this make sense...

We're in the final planning stages of a ground-floor extension. Because the wall of our site narrows towards the back, the new build will have one wall that follows this angle, and so the kitchen part of the combined kitchen/dining/living space will be set at a slight angle to the rest of the room (see plan below). This is fine, we're happy it's the best use of space and will look good.

The problem is what flooring to go for. I have always wanted timber flooring, and the natural thing would be to run this right through the ground floor from the front to the back of the house. The problem is, if the planks in the kitchen bit are in line with this, then the cabinets, island, dining table will all be slightly offset to the orientation of the floorboards. DH thinks this is not a problem; I think it will be an immediate irritant and annoy me every time I look at it. My solution is to - as in the second picture below, which is of outdoor decking but should give you an idea - have the floorboards in this section running in the other direction entirely, and in line with the left exterior wall of the kitchen, and the is with the cabinets etc. it would need some sort of strip where the two different sections meet up.

Will this work? Are there other options I'm not thinking of? Tiles and anything in a regular grid pattern will have the same problem; I really don't want a polished concrete floor and I'm struggling to think of anything else that's a random non-grid flooring so won't be affected by our wonky wall issue.

Thanks if you've read this far!

Is the back left wall not a better place for a run of units? Then the flooring wouldn't be as obvious?

Do you mean the bit that's bifold doors on the plan? That will also be at an angle to the main house so the same problem will apply. Putting the kitchen on the right wall is also tricky due to a chimney breast and drain issues.

I think your solution will draw more attention to the angles and actually create more visual disturbance, sorry! In my last house we had a similar shaped extension and we had engineered wood parquet flooring put in. It went from the front door to the bifolds at back (in hall, sitting room and large kitchen diner) and just went "straight" or as straight as parquet goes (eg zig zag!). It looked absolutely fine (or good even) with our kitchen island at an angle and quirky shapes in the kitchen.

I definitely see what you mean about straight lines of flooring and angles of kitchen looking off together. In my case, the parquet pulled it all together

That's interesting, @TheYear2000, great to know it's worked well for you (I don't suppose you want to share a picture 😬? Totally ok if not!) I did think of parquet but I thought that unless the angle of it happened to exactly match the angle of the wall/cabinets/island, we'd have the same problem.

I suppose as a general principle I felt that the different orientations of the two parts of the room should feel like a deliberate choice rather than a mistake, which is what I'm afraid it will look like if the island, say, is 15 degrees 'off' from the floorboards. So I thought it might be better to lean into it by turning that part of the flooring completely around, and making it a feature.

I don't know if private messages won't work because I don't have Mumsnet premium but if you can private message me I would send a picture!

I just googled the flooring and this picture gives an idea of how it looks- even if this kitchen isn't at an angle necessarily

www.bambooflooringcompany.com/solid-carbonised-strand-woven-90mm-parquet-block-bona-coated-bamboo-flooring.html

If you just look at this picture and imagine the island is at an angle- that's similar to my house. It looked great and I miss it!

Have you considered diagonal planks? If you were to start at the front door with the planks at a 45 degree angle, it might blend well between the different spaces.

Plus, laying planks diagonally seems to make the spaces look bigger, in my view.

Thanks @TheYear2000 - I've been able to PM you by using the browser rather than the app - would be very grateful if you could send a pic!

That's an idea, @ClematisBlue49 - I wonder would installation be massively more expensive? But then, anything other than laying it all straight from front to back is going to be more expensive anyway, including parquet.

I don't think it would be as expensive as parquet / herringbone. I will find out soon enough as I'll be having diagonal flooring in my new place eventually. I will ask at the showroom and post again if I find out anything useful.

Thanks, @ClematisBlue49 , I'd really appreciate that!

I'd have all the flooring going top to bottom in same direction from the front door. I.e. vertical in your pic

Or you could have a really complicated mitre join