Flooring choices for side extension - need to be uniform or ok to be different?!.

[GF79]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a single story extension (see plan) and really appreciated your help and advice when thinking about the layout so am hoping you can also help with flooring dilemmas.

It's going to be narrow (about 1.8/1.9m internally) and give us a cloakroom and WC off the hall at the front and at the back, a utility and teeny snug (a reading room with a built in window seats overlooking the back garden).

When we originally renovated the house, finances meant we had to do it in stages and as a result we've different flooring in the hallway (the black and white tiles) and kitchen. Both have underfloor heating which we now rarely use as it's electricity and the unit cost has become so expensive!

My question is about flooring in the extension. Should we seek to at least match the tiles with the areas they connect to (if they're still available!)? I'd originally thought of something different for the extension (something like engineered wood), not least because I was never a big fan of the kitchen ones in the first place, but think it may look ridiculous with so many contrasting floors?! There's carpet in the living room but this doesn't bother me as it feels like a completely separate space. Also we have wooden worktops in the kitchen so I think we'd need to be careful it wasn't too much/clash?!

The other idea is to rip up the kitchen flooring and extend the extension flooring into there so it's only the hall and living room that have different flooring, everywhere else is the same, but this seems wasteful and perhaps uncessarily expensive. The hallway floor cost a fortune and we both like it so we don't want to have to replace this too if possible.

All thoughts welcome, we're tying ourselves
in knots!

Personally, I would try to have the Utility room flooring to match or have the same vibe with the kitchen flooring as these areas flow into each other.

If you dislike the kitchen flooring, then it’s a good opportunity to replace it, albeit given you have EUFH, it’s very delicate and susceptible to damage if not removed properly. Tile over it may impact the efficiency of the EUFH.

I would also tile the Cloak room and WC as it’s easy to clean, but I would probably make it diferente than the kitchen but gave a nice flow from your hallway flooring. Snug could be any flooring really. Most like you would put a rug there anyway. So consider carpeting the area.

I wouldn’t touch the hallway flooring!

Thank you! I agree about the flow from the kitchen to utility. The fridge and bin will be in there so it'll be an open space for much of the day. Good point about the snug and a rug!

Yes I think it'll be tricky to remove the tiles and underfloor heating as the elements were set with screed.

I think it feels harder to think about replacing stuff as we put it in ourselves. It's always easier to rip out someone else's work/decisions! We've never lived anywhere long enough for this to be an issue before!

I'd go for same or similar design for the lobby/wc as the hallway. Use a flooring border in the doorway space and a similar geometric pattern?
I'd refloor the kitchen/dining/utility/snug in one type. LVT is what I'm currently looking at and there's lots of choice. I looked at engineered wood but when just looking at how the appearance looked I couldn't really tell the difference.

The real difference between engineered wood and LTV is the underfoot feel. Wood will be a bit warmer but honestly not a major difference. LVT is also less noisy if you are considering for upper floors.

Maybe so, but I did emphasis appearance, and having compared both I don't think engineered wood looks so different. Indeed in many instances it's appearance seems the same. So I suppose that if you compared it to non-gluedown lvt it might feel similar too, and you could add insulation under the lvt.

Apologies, I know it's not what you asked, but why the separate utility and cloakroom? Make the cloakroom a little bigger too incorporate laundry, push the loo towards the middle, have a smaller pantry for your fridge and bin off the kitchen and gain a bit of space in the snug.
Or loo right at the front of the house. Combine cloak and utility in the middle which would be a pretty big room, and bit more space for the snug.
Just curious.

Thank you! We're going to see if the hallway tiles are still available. Turns out the kitchen ones aren't so looks like it'll have to be ripped up...we've got LVT (Karndean) in an en suite but I wasn't sure whether it would be strong enough for downstairs where there are shoes and a lot more traffic!

Oooh these are good ideas, thank you! I guess we'd figured the logical space for the utility was near the kitchen and that the cloakroom coming off the hall meant the hall could be opened up a bit when the door was open but really as you suggest, there's no reason why the washing machine etc can't be a part of the cloakroom.

We wanted the snug to be a separate space where a (pocket) door could be used to close the door on the rest of the house and because of where the current door frame is in an external wall/kitchen units the logical space was to the right hand side of that current door. But a smaller area next to it for a fridge and the bin could work as you say...food for thought - thanks again!