Seriously you need to check out the Kerlite cladding. No need to sand, the variety is huge even wood look. All you need to do is put on a thicker screed. As I said you do need a tiler that has laid it before. Once it's down, it will never break. Google it, the range is amazing and really beautiful. I did ask the tiler about using it over slate and he said not a problem. Got mine from tile expo.

It would be much more cost effective to work with the slate. Image sent by mazgardiner looks great. If the home was purchased for rental purposes, the plinth could be painted white, benchtop and splashback tiles painted (much cheaper than replacing) to blend in with slate colours. If you are going to live in the property, sometimes it's best to live with how it is and replace later when you have better understanding of what you want. Good luck with it all!

Hi Nick The vinyl is a no go unfortunately as it needs a nice flat surface. Otherwise you will soon see the underlying pattern through. You have a couple of options though with the slate as others have suggested. Firstly I would check out the adhesion of the slate to the floor ie check if there are any loose pieces. Tap on the floor lightly with your knuckles over the whole floor or VERY lightly with a hammer or other metal object. You will soon hear hollow areas. If there is a lot hollow, I would break out the jack hammer and pop it all off. It's a bit of a job, but you can strip a large area in a day easily then grab a floor grinder to remove the adhesive. Again another day and messy but then you have a fresh start, or you can get a floor stripping company in to do it with little fuss. Options then become standard ie vinyl, other tiles or epoxy coatings. If you want to go over the existing floor, you can have a flooring specialist out that does self leveling epoxys or flowcrete to either create a marble style or polished concrete finish, a clear mirror level finish in which the slate looks like a pattern within the mirror floor or create a level surface from which you can then add your vinyl etc. Cathy are thinking of Laminam? It comes in a 3m x 1m sheet which I have seen used on floors but you can also get the 1m x 1m for floors and it is 3mm thick plus the backing. Cheers

I remember hearing of the product in the original question, name added in a subsequent post. My immediate thought was that preparation of the surface is crucial and even more so for this product as it is very thin. This is what I found on the manufactiurer's website. "As far as old ceramic, cotto, stone, marble or PVC floors are concerned, make sure they are sound and firmly fixed. The existing floor must be dry, stable, sound, perfectly flat and clean, which means that there must be no brittle fragments compromising adhesion of Kerlite Plus. Flatness checking should be performed using a screed with a length of at least 2 metres. Place the screed on the old floor in all directions and, if necessary, compensate for any differences in level." https://www.cottodeste.com/solutions/faq?_ga=2.261653453.1349840659.1675227047-1392414663.1675227047