Tim, his wife Rhiannon and their young son Emlyn have lived in their West Byfleet home for almost 12 years. They love the home and its Surrey location so with no plans to move decided it was time to give the house a bit of a makeover.
Tim explains, “The home has quite an open plan layout with the living room leading to the kitchen area which is great for family life. The kitchen and utility room had tiles which had started to pick up cracks and chips, and the carpet that ran through the hallway and living area had definitely seem better days, so both we agreed it was time to give these spaces a refresh.
“There was no building work involved, it was just about updating the decoration and floors, and we were definitely keen to have the same floor finish throughout the ground floor to create a seamless flow and lose the messy transitions we currently had between floor finishes.”
Carpet and tiles were both ruled out and the couple decided they liked the idea of introducing a wood floor finish into the home. “Whenever we visited friends’ homes that had wood floors there was just such a natural warmth that they conveyed. I didn’t really know where to start looking though, so I spoke to my friend who is a builder at Big Eye Engineering for advice.
“We debated laminate but I had ruled this out as my knowledge of laminates that I had seen were floors that looked cheap and not like the real thing at all. We also discussed the pros and cons of a real wood floor. Going around in circles he said I should visit the V4 World showroom in Woking. He’d worked with their products before and said both their engineered wood floors and laminates were brilliant quality and the choice was huge.”
Tim and his wife paid a visit to the V4 showroom and when they saw the large samples of the Natureffect Laminate floors they were impressed. “I couldn’t believe just how much they looked like real wood floors. They were certainly on a different level to any laminates I’d come across before. We really did like some of the benefits of having a laminate and they would work better with our budget too.”
Sold on a laminate wood floor the V4 World team talked them through the different Natureffect styles and it was the XXL collection that caught their eye. “We felt the extra large nature of these planks would really enhance the feeling of space in the home and make the hallway and open plan room feel so much bigger.”
The Natureffect XXL Laminate Floors are imprinted and embossed with natural textured grains on extra large planks making it almost impossible to tell it apart from a real oak floor. And the generous plank sizes of 243 x 2175mm really enhance the finished rustic feel of the boards.
“We have oak doors and some other wood finishes in the home already so we wanted a tone that would blend naturally with these other woods and when we took some samples home the Golden Fall style was perfect.”
Decision made Tim ordered the floors through Big Eye Engineering and enlisted his friend Tim Johnston from TJ Carpentry to complete the installation.
“When the kitchen tiles came up this left some uneven patches in the sub-floor concrete so he screeded this area to ensure we had a completely level floor running throughout before the laminate planks were installed. Removal of the old floors and sub-floor preparation took the longest, the new floors went down is just a day or two. Everything was done within a week though.”
Completing the rooms makeover the walls are kept bright and light with crisp white paint, and a feature wall around the fireplace adds beautiful pops of colour with the Orla Kiely Harlequin Multi Stem wallpaper design.
“We had most of the furniture already and it all works perfectly in the redecorated space. We took the old skirting off and once the floors were laid replaced them with a more modern style which also helps to really update the feel of the room.
“We love the finished room and the floors are fantastic. While they have a naturally soft and warm feel, they also feel so solid underfoot and also tough enough to survive any kitchen spillages and the not so careful footfall of our toddler and cats. Having one floor finish throughout the home makes such a difference and my son now loves that he can run his toy train throughout the home without messy flooring transitions getting in the way of his journey.”
