The time is almost upon us friends, we are almost at the point where we can afford to replace the tiles in the kitchen. My little paint job has served me well, and it's made the tiles so much easier to live with for the past year, but it was always a stop-gap and the end is nigh people, the end is very fricking nigh.
So we have a decision to make, to just re-tile the kitchen and utility room with something a lot less offensive and leave it at that, or do what I would really love to do and re-do the kitchen, living room and hall with new wood flooring?
On the one hand, I've always wanted a wood floor in my kitchen and having the same flooring throughout would make the whole place look so much bigger, not to mention making it easier to clean and having less things to trip over. On the other hand....I think it's going to cost way more than we were looking to spend.
I had hoped that I could get a nice laminate for around €20 a square metre and just use that, but our builder says that if it's going up against the sliding door to outside and in the kitchen laminate could be dodgy as it really doesn't like a lot of moisture. Laminate is basically made of compressed dust it seems, and is a right diva. Now, I have no intention of flooding the place, but it would be awful if if started to buckle.
So, he recommends at least going for engineered wood planks, which are real wood pieces glued on top of ply, and not as susceptible to water. These however, are not in our price range, cos this is about where we're at...
So yeah, cheap and cheerful is what we're going for here. Some day I'll have a house with solid wood floors, giant showers, a garden that doesn't have about twenty neighbors looking in at me as I hang the washing out in my ratty pajamas, all that good shit, but for now this is where we are, and solid wood is not going to happen.
We could use wood effect tiles, which would be great in the kitchen.....but way too cold in the living room. I would be able to do something cool like this great herringbone effect with them though...
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| Little Green Notebook |
How amazing is this kitchen? I want it all, ALL OF IT!!!! But maybe I could start with the floor?
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| Caitlin Wilson |
So what to do, go with the laminate and take the risk, or just settle for new tiles in the kitchen and be done with it? But then the floor that's currently in the living room and hall will really need to be re-done at some point anyway, cos it's very gappy and weird. Gah! Decisions!
It's hard. The thought of spending all that money on something that isn't what I really want sucks. But we can't afford what I really want.....and the plan is not to be in this house forever, so maybe conventional tile in the kitchen is a better idea for re-sale anyway?
Ugh, I hate this. We need to make a decision, cos the paint is gone past the point of touching up now, so it needs to be re-done if we're not changing them. The floor is just getting grubbier and chipp-ier every day. What do you guys think? Am I mad to go for laminate? What do you think of wood floors in a kitchen in general? Should I just stick with the conventional if we're going to sell this house at some point? I need opinions!! And if anyone has had tile in their sitting room (in Ireland, it's cold here guys, tile is not a usual thing in the living room) I'd really love to hear what you think.
If you would like to read about the other projects in my kitchen makeover:
