Advice and recommendations for flooring

[xriccix]

We are buying a new house and want to replace all the flooring downstairs, about 55 square meters.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with the flooring choices, real wood, engineered wood, all the different kinds of laminate and then stuff like bamboo.

Price wise we have about £50 per sqm2, must be very hard wearing and long lasting.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[hornetstinger]

I would go for bamboo, hard wearing and natural product.

 

[Participant]

Carpet in living areas, tiles in utility and kitchen areas, wood only in the hall.

I don't get this obsession with wood / laminate everywhere as a flooring solution. It's hard, noisy, expensive, and in the case of imitation stuff like Karndean, a bit tacky.

 

[xriccix]

Carpet in living areas, tiles in utility and kitchen areas, wood only in the hall.

I don't get this obsession with wood / laminate everywhere as a flooring solution. It's hard, noisy, expensive, and in the case of imitation stuff like Karndean, a bit tacky.

Couldn't disagree more, down stairs is fairly open plan and we want to tie it all together. Carpet upstairs is a must though. We will break up downstairs with some nice rugs.

We just looked at karndean and where quite impressed.

 

[tom_nieto]

We’ve got Eiger V4 engineered wood in our extension. It’s worn pretty well I think and looks great to my eye. Would definitely have it again.

 

[thezappa]

Karndean is vinyl and it’s pretty average. Amtico is a higher end option for vinyl.
I’d go carpet in living areas (lounge & diner) and either vinyl or tiles in wet areas and whatever you want the hall. We have carpet in the hall but am thinking of having tiled with a mat well given the traffic it sees.
In any case £50 m2 is a decent budget but you’ll need to factor in laying costs if you’re getting someone in to do it.

 

[TheCrow]

We had ~55sq/m downstairs done in bamboo (hall, study, living room, dinning room)

After much research we went with strand woven bamboo, which is meant to be harder and more durable than hardwood also cheaper which is nice! We went with "Strand Bamboo Super Light Coffee" from Simply Bamboo. Joiner who put the floor down was very impressed with the quality (fully sealed and waxed on all sides) apart from he went through a lot more blades than normal floor due to how hard it was.

Had it in over 3 years now and it is holding up really well. Only 1 tiny scratch from moving some heavy furniture that must have had something under its foot. No noticeable wear in the hall which has endless kids (and all the dirt they bring with them) running all day every day.

 

[jellybeard999]

We recently had LG Decotile LVT fitted throughout the downstairs - same idea as Karndean

http://in.lghausys.com/in/product/interior/decotile.jsp

I'm pretty happy with it so far.

 

[xriccix]

Thanks for all the replies.

Tempted but either amtico or karndean but I'm still liking bamboo a lot.

We are planning a trip to the ideal home show to have a good look at options too .

 

[sovietspybob]

We've got engineered oak in all our open plan downstairs (apart from a separate the study and lounge which are carpeted) this continues on the landing to tie it all together.

I'd have it again but you do have to take care with it, it will scratch and dent if you're not careful. It's not not as cold as tiles and to my eye at least looks a ton better than any of the vinyl/laminate types. I'd want nothing other than some form of hard floor in a kitchen, hall or dining room though as it's just so easy to clean. We have a karcher floor steam cleaner and it brings it up like new so easily.

Can't find a better picture showing more but: