Flooring for black/walnut kitchen??

matty_hunt

Hi.

In need of help from anyone with design flare or vision!!

I am installing a new kitchen, gloss black units (from Trade Depot) with solid walnut worktops, stainless steel oven, hob and hood. However, I havent a clue what colour to do the walls, what type of splashback to have, or what type and colour floor to put in to compliment the units and top. I am after a stylish contempry look. Its a smallish kitchen 2.4x3m with units in a U-shape so floor space is not large. Infact, floor space is only about 1.2x2.5m Its north facing but not dark.
Any help and advice is welcome, and much appreciated as I really dont have a clue!

pandaqueen1

Hello. I was thinking about the black gloss kitchen after going Trade Depot today, but the other half likes the shaker walnut with black worktops. We have a Johnson's tile clearing shop near us (Tunstall, Stoke) and they sell single tiles as samples. I would get maybe a very light/pale grey, maybe with a little sheen to make it look modern. You will then have your silver accessories and you could have an accent colour in the form of jars or pictures. I've seen lime green in jars etc and it looks fab. This you could change when the mood takes you.

Walls could be a very light colour like a soft grey or a white with a hint of grey. The worktops will keep the look warm. I like matching upstands but again there are some wonderful tiles.

Where ever you live its worth buying tile samples and just leaving them on the floor to see how it goes. You could try laminate and again we have lent samples to see what looks right. I would say tiles though would work best as its a smaller space.

matty_hunt

What type of worktop? My depot, as mentioned in my other post, has white minerelle on the walnut shaker. I have been advised by numerous places when investigating minerelle that the black is a no no. It really shows up the scratches. Minerelle cant be polished to give a shine either despite what the saleman told me. From what I gather from posts here and on other forums gloss tops show up scratches (even granite) and black even more so.

Doozergirl

Not much floor space so I'd probably splash out and have high polished granite tiles. Like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Black-Granite-Floor-Tiles-305x305-24-62_W0QQitemZ150149212407QQihZ005QQcategoryZ42128QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not suggesting that particular company, the picture showed the fact it's shiny, that's all.

B&Q do a very similar polished black porcelain tiles which are already cheaper than that. Time it for one of their 15% off promotions and you're laughing.

matty_hunt

Thanks for that Doozergirl. Other posts have put me off black tiles as some people are having to clean then 2 or 3 times a day!! They seam to show up all the dirt and dust, plus the shiney ones show footprints and show scuffs. Though you are right they would look good.

Do porcelain tiles have to be sealed?

Doozergirl

They shouldn't need sealing no, as they won't be porous.

If you live in my house, the kitchen floor needs cleaning constantly and I don't have lovely shiny tiles, but I can see the point people make. the make the same point about shiny doors sometimes and that I think is unjustified.

If you don't want the shinyness then I would go with walnut to match the worksurface. You want to keep the palette minimal, that's the point of that particular kitchen.

majjie

I'd go with PandaQueen's suggestion and use different shades of grey or pale blue. I think you need a lighter colour to bring out the richness of the walnut and to contrast with the black.

I'm a big fan of porcelain floor tiles - because they're so easy to keep clean (you can just sweep them most of the time - dried dirt comes off easily). There are lots of dark grey floor tiles about - but something paler would be a better contrast (not too pale though).

For the splashbacks you could try glass tiles - something like Original Style. It gives you a slightly luminous look. They come in loads of colours but if you want to keep fairly minimal you could stick with pale grey or white.