"Black! Black! It's all Black!" - flooring advice needed please!

[Umgall]

We're about to start a major bit of work on our kitchen/family room, by knocking the two together, then building on a large sunroom. All together it will be an area of around 45m^2.

We're going for an Arosa gloss wood kitchen from Bauformat with 80mm black granite worktops, and reckoned that 30x60cm black porcelain floor tiles would look stunning.

However, looking at pictures of similar kitchens (magazines, online etc) we haven't seen one that doesn't use a light coloured floor, making us think that the black floor would be too dark.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Does anyone have a black tiled floor with a dark kitchen?

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Umgall.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well we have dark grey slate and granite and oak tops and oak and brick and lightish plasterwork..

Its OK..

taste is taste, and things go in waves of fashion..

I rather like cosy hobbit holes to crawl into..this Brite Wite Post Modern Minimalist look is not my style, and looks awful when dogs with wet muddy tails smack it up.

But thats country living..if you want Brite Lite, Nature provides lots of it outside, and inside is the cave..warm dark safe and cosy.

In a city I suspect you need reminding of Outside, so painting up the rooms to make them feel like Outside is the way to go. Outside in a city generally being dark and utterly miserable in winter..

[Justin TIme]

Beware... Friends of mine have glossy black ceramic tiles... wow, they seem to highlight the tiniest of marks/grit/crumbs. Also black worktop, but not noticed it to be a "dark kitchen" though.

[Steven Briggs]

In message , Justin TIme writes

Did my kitchen last year with black granite effect worktops and black granite effect tiles (3 rows high). Black glass hob. Unit fronts are off-white. Floor teracotta tile vinyl. Really that's about a much black as I would want. Looks very good, but no more! Oh and the worktops show up crumbs and smears and the like really well, while hiding things like gravy splodges!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Use matte granite..cheaper and less prone to showing up stuff.

[Anne Jackson]

The message from "Justin TIme" contains these words:

Friends of mine have glossy ceramic (not black) tiles, and they're an absolute bastard if they get even slightly wet...

[Peter Parry]

Asked my tiler neighbour and he did say he has tiled 4 black kitchens in the last year, and been asked back to redo 3 of them in lighter tile after about 6 months. They were of the modern fad for very glossy mineral work surfaces and high gloss cupboards in dark red/dark blue/dark dark with black porcelain floor tiles and dark or black wall tiles. Lighting (to misuse the word somewhat) was a ceiling full of downlighters. All the work came from the same designer - whose knowledge of cooking and lighting are about on a par but whose gothic look work is for some reason very popular with the footballers who have bought around here.

He hates doing them as the only way of handing them over is for everyone to back out polishing the floor and wall tiles as they go. The second anyone walks in the slightest mark stands out (the daft lighting not helping of course).

One was changed after the resident WAG broke her elbow very badly discovering that a few drops of chicken fat, water and porcelain tiles rival wet PTFE for coefficient of friction. As Anne has said, while porcelain tiles have merit, they are very slippy when wet and this needs to be carefully considered especially if the kitchen is a popular route between indoors and outdoors.

[MB]

My first thought when making any changes: what makes the least work in future? A neutral, dust-color is always the answer. As for what you have to look at-- any extreme, whether very light or very dark, is something you'll tire of very soon. The safety aspect: ceramic tiles are slippery, even if not wet, as is laminate.

[baxter basics]

Friends of mine have glossy ceramic (not black) tiles, and they're an absolute bastard if they get even slightly wet...

I agree. Ours are a bit of a bastard even when dry if your wearing socks! And if you drop anything fragile it always breaks and completely detonates when it does (they were there when we moved in BTW)