We are in the process of filling our gaps with pine slithers (they cam in different widths) You can buy them online. You do suffer from bald/ red knees when you hammer them in and then need to chisel them down so they are flush with the rest of the floor but it really does help. What you can also order with the pine slithers is pine saw dust with resin - you mix the two up and can fill the really narrow gaps which the slithers don't fit into. If you don't mind spending the time doing this I would recommend it yourself (especially if you're worried about costs), depending how big the surface is, and then have someone in to do the sanding. The varnishing you can also do you yourself with a normal paint roller. We also recently had a quote for sanding and varnishing and I think it came to £500 for mid size living room and 3 m length hall.

You could do a black paint trim over the wooden bits. It would go with the work tops. But not so much with the creamy doors; Or get all of the kitchen units spray painted white? I think if you try to match the floor with the wood of the units in the kitchen you may leave yourself open to a mismatch or even just an overload of wood. I didn't feel there was enough black there as the island top kind of took me by surprise on first seeing it. But could you remove that granite altogether and see how it looks then? Maybe it's the black that's the problem not the wood at all

Hi. I'm looking for some thoughts and hope you all could help. We're looking to change the layout of our kitchen. Currently we have a long sitting room / dinning room and small kitchen. Looking to close off the sitting room and combine the dinning room and pitching. We've sketched our thoughts below. Is there anything else we should be looking to add or move to try and make this plan better. Thanks Paul

If your dream home was to use a white oiled finish would you choose a traditional wide plank or a modern style herringbone floor?