Waiting, waiting, waiting...

The bank say the valuer still hasn't given them the info they need, so we continue to wait...

Went to look at some flooring options yesterday and were quite impressed by the Karndean range of wood look vinyl. It really does look like real wood and is softer and warmer under foot than tiles and doesn't expand/contract like a floating floor. It's also very thin (3mm) which eliminates some issues with differing levels of flooring around the house.
It comes in 'planks' that are glued down in a similar fashion to laying timber boards and costs roughly the same as a tiled floor for the commercial grade one.

3 concerns with it

• the commercial grade one has a .5mm thick wear layer, which is fine for normal wear, but not for cuts/scratches.
• the vinyl will leech chemical vapour (so too will the wall paint, and kitchen cupboards) for quite some time after installation which compounds the new house health risks.
• there is the potential for fading in the highly sun exposed living area that we intend to install them in.

I like the idea of tiles in general, but they are very hard and cold, will crack if the slab changes size in wet/dry times or if someone drops something on them. The grout also tends to discolour and look yuck over time.

Apparently, this alternative is better again, and has a lot less toxins, but I have no idea of the price yet.

After all that, I'm not sure if our tiled floor was specified and therefore has an influence on our BASIX certificate. Will need to check that I suppose. Though from memory it didn't matter if we had no floor coverings to all but the wet areas.

Maybe that's a good idea - carpet all the carpet areas, but leave the whole living until we're in and can see what the lighting etc is like and choose something that will not be too dark in that area, but still dark enough to absorb the north winter sun warmth.