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OT - Best flooring for an open plan kitchen, living room and dining area





Feb 23, 2009
22,840
Brighton factually.....
That's my point! It's open plan, and although carpet in living room/dining area would be fine, we don't want it in our kitchen!

Knowing most of the units your on about they usually finish on a line from the last kitchen unit across this splitting the open plan kitchen and lounge area. Looks better if Amtico all way through in one.
 


















Perkino

Well-known member
Dec 11, 2009
5,978
I bought laminate for my kitchen, dining room and living room. Same floor to cover 40m2 it cost around £500 along with insulating sheets. I ripped out the living room and installed the 1st half in around 6 hours then emptied the kitchen and spent another 4/5 hours fitting/ finishing it all off. No previous experience in with it And a 6 yr old and 18 month old interfering

Purchased from Howdens, very easy to fit and a decent price. I'd never use carpets or lino for such rooms due to the mess and scratches.
 


bWize

Well-known member
Nov 6, 2007
1,676
We've had no issues with shrinkage/expansion whatsoever. The skirtings were already fitted so we attached extra little runners to them after the floor was fitted as shown here:

View attachment 86491

Here's an image showing the ones I fitted in my room:

View attachment 86492

Looks really good! I'm tempted to do a couple of rooms in that style. How hard is it to lay? I have laid a few laminate floors in the past (planks) and found it a complete ball ache.
 


KVLT

New member
Sep 15, 2008
1,675
Rutland
Looks really good! I'm tempted to do a couple of rooms in that style. How hard is it to lay? I have laid a few laminate floors in the past (planks) and found it a complete ball ache.

The shop where we bought the tiles supplied a guy to fit them. It looked pretty straightforward though. He put some underlay beneath them and then they just link together. Obviously some edge pieces have to be cut to size and a gap has to be left so they're not fully flush to the wall to allow for expansion.

I think you'd likely need a laminate floor cutter rather than a saw, but a quick look on google shows they're not too expensive, or you can probably hire one.

If you have done it before I would guess that working with a grid of squares would be a heck of a lot easier than planks.

Here's a couple of videos detailing the process:



 




bWize

Well-known member
Nov 6, 2007
1,676
The shop where we bought the tiles supplied a guy to fit them. It looked pretty straightforward though. He put some underlay beneath them and then they just link together. Obviously some edge pieces have to be cut to size and a gap has to be left so they're not fully flush to the wall to allow for expansion.

I think you'd likely need a laminate floor cutter rather than a saw, but a quick look on google shows they're not too expensive, or you can probably hire one.

If you have done it before I would guess that working with a grid of squares would be a heck of a lot easier than planks.

Here's a couple of videos detailing the process:





Thanks for the detailed reply mate. Like you say, it has to be easier than the planks! Will probably order some this week and will let you know how I get on... Cheers.
 




Live by the sea

Well-known member
Oct 21, 2016
4,718
Go with engineered wooden floor. Better quality than laminate which looks crap but wears better than real wood
 








KingKev

Well-known member
Jun 16, 2011
867
Hove (actually)
We went with Karndean from Ocean, local firm that doesn't have a showroom. They were great and very pleased with the Karndean in both bathrooms.
Karndean also used throughout in my sister-in-laws swanky new duplex in Chiswick. Standard throughout a massive new development and looks fab.
 


Scampi

One of the Three
Jun 10, 2009
1,531
Denton
We've had karndean put down in our dining room and computer room/ family room. it's cheaper than amtico and looks i think really good. We considered amtico but quite frankly it didn't realy justify the extra cost. Can give you the number of the people we used who were the best price we could find and did a really good job
 




drew

Drew
Oct 3, 2006
23,007
Burgess Hill
Why not use ceramic or porcelain tiles?
very long lasting and hard wearing.

This is the route we're going with underfloor heating thrown in to cover hallway, kitchen and conservatory.

With regard to the OP, whilst it is open plan, there is surely no rule that says you have to have the same type of flooring in the kitchen area as you have elsewhere!
 


WATFORD zero

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jul 10, 2003
25,667
Another Karndeanian. The thing I liked was that they can lay edging or patterns around the rooms or sections of rooms - eg

floorslide7.jpg

2014-01-2221_07_40.jpg

Gives a really nice finish. I got a run of Family area, kitchen, utility room, cloakroom all done out about 10 years ago and still looks perfect. I wish I'd known about it before I had the parquet flooring put in the dining room :down:
 
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