Kitwood House

Dementia homes often use design to trigger fond memories in their residents. Textures, tones and shades of materials and fittings that are associated with different settings can transport those living with dementia back to their youth, generating thoughts of happy times.

Kitwood House, a new 64-bed dementia home in Northwich, used flooring and clever interior design to achieve exactly that.

Developed throughout the pandemic, it was essential for owners L&M Healthcare to provide a high specification facility that uses different zones to ensure residents are comfortable, while encouraging them to harness their memories.

During the installation, zones were created with specific themes that required relevant flooring to bring the ideas to life. The home includes areas simulating a ship, train, high street and beach, with interactive screens used to display matching scenery suitable to each zone.

The flooring installer selected for the development, Hanley Flooring, had used Polyflor floor coverings for an array of other projects, so knew of the extensive ranges available in a variety of finishes that could be cherry picked to match each individual space and their varying requirements. In bedrooms and bathrooms, for example, it was essential to select a floor covering that offered ultimate safety, while in areas like the reception and living space, aesthetic and comfort was more important.

To achieve this, Polyflor’s Polysafe range was selected for the development’s bedrooms and bathrooms, while Polyflor’s Expona Bevel Line range was selected for communal spaces.  

Polysafe Quattro, which provides a high degree of slip resistance in continually wet areas, was installed in en suite areas in Barley Cove; Polysafe Verona, which combines specification for dementia schemes with a contemporary design, was fitted in Seagrass within the beach-themed area, while Polysafe Wood fx, a safety vinyl flooring with decorative, high clarity wood finishes was selected for other communal rooms and themed spaces in Sun Bleached Oak.

This was complemented with the use of Polyflor’s Expona Bevel Line range, a collection of bevel edged luxury vinyl tiles mirroring the natural beauty of wood. Featuring a polyurethane reinforcement, the covering is equally suited to heavy commercial and residential applications. Over 10,000 sq ft of Expona Bevel Line in Harewood Limed Oak was installed in communal kitchen and living areas, to ensure residents and guests alike benefitted from a flooring which replicated the comfort of home, which could also be easily maintained.