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

Filling gaps between timber floor boards can lead to disaster and is best avoided. Sanded and polished timber floors tend to swell slightly during the humid months of the year and shrink again in the drier months. This creates movement in the timber floor. If you fill the floor when the gaps are at their widest and then encounter some humid weather, the floors will swell, closing the gap and forcing the filling out of the grooves and cracking the timber floor finish. This looks far worse than gaps in the polished timber floors. If you can't live with the gaps, laying a engineered timber floor over the top may be your best choice. Painting your floors white is also best to avoid as this only accentuates the size of the gaps. Good luck with your decision. Engineered timber floors

Your tile will co-ordinate beautifully with the timber if you can pick one of the darker colours out of the timber and select a tile in this family of colour. The trick to making a colour concept work is to either co-ordinate or contrast. If your timber is as busy with grain and colour as the image you've shown, then maybe co-coordinating is the best way to go. Never chose materials independently of each other - always take a tile sample home to see in the natural light, next to the timber. I hope it all works out the way you envisage it. Cheers, Michelle

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.