Kitchen flooring - slate or cushion?

[worldgonecrazy]

I really love slate floor tiles and have seen some gorgeous ones at Fired Earth. Does anyone have these, and if so, how well do they stand up to having things dropped on them? I had terracotta tiles at my previous house and the chips from a dropped iron, several dropped saucepans, etc made them look really tatty. The ones I love are these ones.

Should I just go for slate effect? It's about a tenth of the price. A friend has some down and you can't really tell the difference, it just doesn't feel "real" underfoot.

[wowfudge]

Hi there - noticed no one has responded, so I'll have a go. I imagine that slate can be damaged by dropping things onto it - plus the things you drop will be damaged by hitting something hard. Vinyl cushion flooring will mark if you drop things on it - especially sharp things or sharp edges and if you ever drap something across it it can scuff; we have vinyl in our small kitchen and there are a few marks although we are pretty careful; it's only been down a couple of years.

How about a compromise and something like stone effect Karndean vinyl tiles instead? It is warm underfoot and not echoey in a large space, easy to keep clean and won't chip or break if you drop things on it. It will not mark easily either. The Da Vinci range has some slate effect tiles in it.

[PigletJohn]

Cushionfloor in a kitchen will be punctured if you drop a knife on it, and will be scarred if you drag an appliance over it. It will dent from chairlegs or tables, and under the feet of appliances.

You might be able to get a non-cushion vinyl that will be more durable.

I quite like slate or tile, though glass and china will smash when dropped on them.

Kitchen floor is quite a problem.

Laminate and most engineered flooring will not stand up to water.

Bamboo and Karndean or similar will, though personally I don't like the look of them.

[weegiemum]

We have natural slate with underfloor heating and it's amazing. Because it's natural each slate is different and so there's no issue with chipping etc (variety of brown/gray tones in each tile) but it's very unforgiving of plates, glasses etc! We got ours in Wickes.

[EugeneKrabs]

I would personally just go for tiles and be careful, as I'm really not a fan of the look of vinyl flooring, even the higher end types (Amtico, Karndean etc).

[weegiemum]

Ours are like this.

[worldgonecrazy]

weegiemum - those are exactly what I am looking for. Thank you

[EugeneKrabs]

We had similar flooring to Weegie's pic, bit ours were laid in a brick pattern. They were hugely practical, never showed the dirt

This is brick pattern

[EugeneKrabs]

But not bit!

[EugeneKrabs]

One thing I would say, is think about how light the room is. Slate really sucks the light out of a room because it is so dark (even the more brightly coloured types). Not such an issue if you have a sunny kitchen with light units and tops to start with, but if you have a large expanse of flooring and the room isn't the brightest, it could really darken the space.

[GobblersKnob]

Dp tried to persuade me to have slate in the kitchen, but I really didn't want it so had a laminate 'tile' instead. We have since put slate in the hallway and more I really regret my decision to not have it in the kitchen, typical.

You can lay real slate quite cheaply with natural tiles. But they need to be laid carefully as they are all different thicknesses.

[worldgonecrazy]

charleybarley thank you for the link, except I got distracted by the side bar and am now deciding which monolith to buy

eugene thank you for that advice. The room is light during the mornings but will be darker in the evenings. Appliances are stainless steel and units will be in ivory gloss. The floor area isn't massive so I'm hoping we will get away with slate.

[fackinell]

Same dilemma, we can't have slate though as we'd need to concrete first (only floorboards.) my MIL is vairy posh and has karndean and high end vinyl. I honestly thought her vinyl floor was stone. It changed my opinion totally as I had the old roll of Lino image stuck in my head. It's come a long way.

[wonkylegs]

I've always had tiled floors but mainly porcelain as it's extremely hardwearing and the ones I've had haven't marked. I haven't really had a problem with things breaking on it, most breakages seem to occur in our sink or catching the edge of the worktop.
We had cream porcelain for 10yrs in old house and despite having bikes, stools, tables etc dragged across it , it still looked new when we left. I've just had beige(earth) porcelain put in here and I hope it lasts as well. We did test it's scratch resistance before they fitted the kitchen and we couldn't scratch it which was a bonus.