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.

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.

As others have stated above, the gas hob arrangement just isn't safe and it needs to be ideally 300mm from the edge. That would be the first thing i'd resolve before worrying about new hobs. I think you're looking at a new worktop for the island then depending on the base units and any built under appliances you could then have a new hob safely fitted. Most hobs upto 750 wide have a 560*490 cutout, 800 and above need a bigger cut out. The other issue you may have with a large gas hob is the gas supply pipe could be undersized for the new hob and your gas man might refuse to connect it. Induction hobs are brilliant but you do need suitable pans to use (and no one with a pacemaker). If you're worried about loosing the gas you could go with domino hobs, basically these are 300 wide hobs which have joining strips so you can make your own hob design and combine different cooking methods, not the cheapest hobs but could be more functional for you.

Can anyone recommend a good matt varnish for original victorian pine floorboards? We used bona mega matt last time, but we need to re-sand as our dogs have completely scratched the floors. I know with the dogs we are going to get scratches, but we perhaps need a more industrial strength product this time to try and avoid damage as much as possible. Any recommendations?