Hi I am in flooring The floor does not have to be water level you have a allowance of 3mm in 1mt or 6mm it 2mt or 9mm in 3mt get the picture The subfloor does have to be hard and smooth But you CAN NOT put the kitchen on the floating floor, the floating floor needs to be able to expand and contract with a min of 10 mm expansion or 1.5mm for every 1mt so a 10mt long room needs 15 mm expansion gap at ether end. Ask the kitchen supplier if he can leave the kick boards of a put them on are the floor is installed

The photo below is my suggestion for colour of floor. Furniture should be darker - similar to below. For the rug - choose one colour from the artwork and find a similar coloured rug. Don't put a mantle over the fireplace - it could be a health hazard - bumps and bruises. Blinds - unless you want them to make a statement I think white - to match window frames would be fine.

I used to have tiled floors at the old place ..the whole downstairs was tiled ( lounge, study, living room , kitchen, laundry) terracotta ones..not cold at all contrary to what people think .. the kids loved riding their trikes around the house as it was massive open living space 36 squares in all. we had a wool rug where the living area was so kids can lounge around.. I find tiles are easier to maintain than floor boards.A quick vacuum and mop is all it needed and it hid the dirt well..whereas floor boards collects dust and hair etc.. Timber floorboards are nice to look at..the floating /laminate looks cheap and nasty I'd rather tiles instead.

Hi Badobbs Structafloor will only span 600mm unsupported in the 22mm and 450mm in the 19mm version so no, it alone won't fix your issue. A simple fix would be to pull up the floor in the affected area and then 'pack' it up to level, THEN lay some structaflor over the new supported sub floor. This is done by getting a laser level and marking out the low points in the joists then making up packers to suit, or installing a packer and planing it down to suit. It depends on the level of dipping. It will be your cheapest option and definitely a job for your carpenter (unless you're handy). Regarding disturbing the floorboards that is nonsense. If there are other issues such as other sagging floorboards then you can address them at the same time, or fix them down properly with screws. I suspect that the real issue is that the wall removal did not take into account that the floor joists are usually fixed to it and they are now unsupported. If you get under there and find issues with your joists/bearers then it is not a big deal to install a couple of stumps/connect bearers to support them whilst it is open. We do it all the time. Either way laying a new floor over a subfloor without addressing it would be a waste of money and will degrade your new floor. Cheers