Easy to clean floors, help and style/taste advice urgently needed

[TabithaTwitchet]

At the moment we have carpet in our lounge. It is getting progressively more spaghetti-bolognese-bespattered etc and we want to replace it with something easier to clean before DD starts potty training (resolve has further been hardened since I came back home today to find cat had done a large poo in the middle of it).

Anyway, we don't have much money, and are hoping to sell the house within the next two years.

I have been looking at flooring, obvious solution is laminate but
(1) I don't like it as it is cold and echoey.
(2) I had a feeling that laminate flooring was a bit passe' and might put off potential buyers - is this true?

Don't think we can afford a proper wood floor

Another option that I saw was vinyl flooring that looks like wood. I'm quite attracted to it myself, as it looks quite realistic, and would be easy to clean, but warm and sound insulating instead of cold and echoey.
However is this idea totally naff and will it make potential housebuyers run for the hills?

And if so, what on earth can I cover my floor with?

Assuming you are not moving soon, I would just have the carpet professionally cleaned. We are having 60 square metres done for £75 next week. If you want to save money and only have one room to do go to Johnsons (Dry Cleaners) and hire one of their carpet cleaners. They really do work well - especially if you get their pre-treatment solution.

Then just wait until DD is little older and put down a neutral oatmeal coloured carpet as that looks fairly modern. I think you should be able to get a decent new one for £20 / square metre (including fitting and underlay) if you go to one of the local shops that sell offcuts.

We have a mix of wood and very light coloured carpets in our house and keep the carpets clean by severely limiting the places kids are allowed eat or have drinks (kitchen only) and never allow anyone to wear shoes in the house.

Lminate is really noisy and quite hard for a child to sit on to play and I think you will regret vinyl.

I have vinyl but it's quite expensive as it's Karndean - I think the naffness depends on how cheap is cheap?

vinyl can look good. my friends kitchen is and i didn't realise till i was in there in bare feet.

laminate would put me off, I hate it and would have to get rid

i love my lanimate floors easy to keep clean and in line with my Swedish White clean cut style( with a good dollop of Pink)

Quite enthusiastic about the vinyl idea now We are having a man come to give us a free estimate etc (will probably turn out that we can't afford it and will have to have laminate anyway)

we have lovely lovely karndean- but it is expensive. we are going to be here for a long time so worth it for us. we had crap laminate before-noisy noisy noisy. However do what we did- do whatever suits your family and have cheap cream carpet put down before selling house ( and i am talking £5 per square metre!)