Wood, laminate or engineered?

[chriselevate]

For a lounge and a separate dinning room what would you recommend and what thickness and underlay would you go for? I have solid floors that are flat and that skirting boards are coming off so just thinking what to lay.

I'll be looking for an "interesting" colour/stain rather than plain simple oak colour.

Thanks.

 

[cjard]

If there's any risk that liquids will be dropped on it, or you have a particular dislike of the higher pitched clacky sound that hard soles shoes and heels make on floors, avoid laminate. That said, engineered can be a real pain in the ass to lay so make sure you play with a few planks in the shop and assess the click together mechanism. Same goes for laminate if you choose it.

When laying wood flooring many years ago the underlay we used was a dense flexible foam on a roll, and it was a few mm thick. Never any complaints about it to my knowledge, but if you're straight onto an unheated slab you might consider 50mm of kingspan and an underfloor heating system..