Hi Charlie, we understand that choosing flooring can be one of the hardest decisions. The floor is one of the biggest surface areas in your room and can make a big difference to the overall look. As you're looking to keep things 'in a traditional style' and have a period property, we think a natural floor would be the best choice for your kitchen. We can't help imagining the lovely contrast a wood floor would make against the stone of that period fireplace too. If you think wood flooring is what you'd like then please be assured that engineered wood is suitable for kitchens. The stability of engineered also gives you the option to install underfloor heating. And, real oak can take withstand more than 100 years before it wears just 1mm. So even though engineered oak has a thinner 'wear layer' of real oak than solid wood, it's more stable and you can be confident that it will last you longer than a lifetime all the same. We've pasted some ideas for the parquet style that you like below. And we also have a guide about the benefits of engineered flooring that you might find handy: https://woodpeckerflooring.co.uk/blog/engineered-wood-flooring-benefits/ Hope that helps (: https://woodpeckerflooring.co.uk/product/goodrich-natural-oak-2/ https://woodpeckerflooring.co.uk/product/goodrich-coffee-oak/

Hi Jeanette, Have you looked at Karndean flooring? It is a high end wood and stone effect vinyl flooring which we have used in many kitchens and bathrooms where laying real wood or stone floors are not possible. Easy to clean, good quality and fairly middle of the road price wise. Hope this helps!

It may depend on the actual colour of the concrete worktop. There are lots of greys, some appear quite cool and veer towards blue, actual poured concrete is usually a 'yellow' grey and so looks warmer. Knowing the real colour will help to narrow down your choices. My gut feeling would be huge format porcelain tiles from Mandarin Stone. They do lots of colours.

Useful "how to guide" - thanks for sharing! Though we tend to specify diathermic oil for such installations, to give better thermal and heat transfer properties.