The important thing is that a kitchen today needs to be is both practical and sociable. One of the most important and enduring decisions you will have to make is on the flooring. Once this is down its going to be a nightmare to replace and it needs to be both nice to look at and easy to maintain. I am going to suggest things I think don’t work, the chief of which are acres of harsh white/cream ceramic tiling. You often see this look in a developer’s idea of a family kitchen complete with nasty black work surfaces and stainless steel bar stools. Think carefully about tiles on the floor and I would suggest something less hospital like and less uniform. Fired Earth do a big selection of stone and ceramic tiling which have character and durability. The trend for wood looking planks can also work as they are a little less harsh and again will stand the test of time.

These hard surfaces though are cold and unsympathetic to anything dropped on them. Stone is an attractive floor but this often gets very messy especially in the grouting. A flagstone irregular floor does look nice and the imperfections and a bit of wear and tear gives the room a sense of timelessness. These solid hard floors mainly work best with underfloor heating – either electric mats or wet plumbed heating. I have had plenty of success with actual wood flooring, both weathered planks and parquet. If they are laid well they function very effectively and give a nice ambience to the room as generally this can be continued into other parts of the house. However you may need to sand them down every four years and re varnish as they will be scratched and dirty over time.

Another option is good vinyl flooring. Once this was a very limited type of flooring but now Karndean and Amtico do pretty good imitation wood and stone flooring that will surprise you. Not cheap, they are very washable and almost indestructible so you will get a lifetime of wear from them. Again they do many different colours and textures with a wide variety of textures.

Keep things simple as regards the floor as you may change the units and you probably will re decorate but the floor – well thats just not going away.