I can only speak from experience of tiles and Karndean. We have two dogs, live in the country, we and the dogs are in and out all day. The dogs both used to slip even on terracotta ( back in the old days), and, i'd be worried about shiny tiles, especially with larger dogs that could slip far more easily and cause themselves damage. The tiles were dark and had to go, as they showed up the dirt. The grout was the biggest problem, as it was easily stained, and just not practical with dogs. We swapped to Karndean around 5/6 years ago and haven't looked back since. It's simply the best, unscratchable, hard wearing, versatile, easily cleaned surface ever. We live in an old cottage and it had to fit in, so we went with Van Gogh, a floorboard effect look, complete with etched woodworm holes! Love it.

I'm guessing by the layout, and fireplaces that it's an old Victorian building. The only thing to remember with flats is that unless you are the sole Freeholder as well as the leaseholder, then you have to get permission from the Freeholder for just about anything internally with regards moving / knocking down walls. I would say, that the best thing to do would be to have a small archway from lounge ( bed 2 ) in to the kitchen diner. The next owner can easily re-instate the wall if they want 2 bedrooms back.....................obviously 2 beds is more valuable than 1. Moving the Kitchen to the bedroom is a better idea and should be achievable as there is clearly drain access out the back near the toilet. If you were to do that you end up with a great sized lounge / diner in the biggest room. You have to take the advice of a structural engineer though, due to it being a flat as you need to know what's structural. I personally nearly always run things past a local estate agent to confirm that my changes are going to add value. I would imagine that a large / spacious well layed out one bed is going to be similar in value to a cramped 2 bed.

I think it will be difficult to find something to match. I could be wrong but, from the photo, it looks like the drive was some kind of crazy paving made up from broken slabs - 2 or 3 different colours (?) which have since weathered & faded. So if you found something similar to replace them, the colour would most likely be brighter. What happened to the parts of the drive that the builder took up?

Humm, I had a similar colour carpet in an old rented flat years ago. It was a hard one to modernise up really but it was just a bedroom and I ended up using raspberry pink and creams which really lifted it. Also a rug over the carpet in the sofa area could draw your eyes to that and the carpet can just act as a background colour. It depends on your tastes really ie as mentioned, a country floral style would work well with the room itself. But, if you have more contemporary taste or prefer brighter colours then you could even go for a vibrant palate on a more tropical floral theme. Introduce neutral charcoal sofa with tropical cushions in deep greens with the same raspberry pinks etc and use lots of leafy plants in the room and artwork.