Kitchen floor poll

[Disneyrsh]

I'm really interested in the cork, it sounds neat!

This house has fake wood floors with big fake grooves in them. Hate it, it's a disaster! Luckily, it's a rental and we're moving into our new (to us) house next month which has really old, old vinyl sheet flooring, so this thread's really interesting to me!

Have heard lots and lots of bad stuff lately about bamboo flooring not holding up-they're harvesting the bamboo before it's mature to meet demand and it's not as hard as it should be, and it's splintering! Ow!

Last house had oak floors in the kitchen, they were beautiful but definitely starting to show wear. I had a bottle of windex fall out of a cabinet and sit on the floor for a few hours and I never was able to get the blue stain out of the floor.

My mom in law has through-color porcelain tiles in both of her houses. Gorgeous and like new after 10 years of hard use. Not as slippery as ceramic, it seems like. I went and looked at the porcelain tiles at Home Depot Expo the last weekend (good place to look, not so much to buy!) and they had through color porcelain tile that looked *exactly* like limestone! Oooooh, I was in love! It had that slight translucency that real stone has, but was tough as nails and maintenance free.

 

[Magickndm]

Hardwood here....love it. As others have said it couldn't be easier to clean. I just use a micro-fiber mop with a little water. Looks perfect and no chemicals.

 

[Kirby]

I have ceramic tile and love it! Just don't like the color though. It's a cream color and I wish that we had installed a something that showed less dirt.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

Pergo - and I love it. So much so that we now have it in the kitchen, breakfast room, entry hallway and upstairs hallway. It's great so clean. I used to have ceramic and while I liked the look of it I was sick of cleaning the grout. WIsh I could get rid of the ceramic tile floors in all three of my bathrooms.

 

[lecach]

We're getting ready to build and trying to make this decision as well. The house will have a slab foundation and I am worried tile would be cold and the grout hard to keep clean. Upgrading to hardwood would cost around $2400 and we get so much moisture on the floor that I would worry about it spotting. Linoleum is included at no additional charge (unless I choose the "upgrade" version which of course I probably would). Right now in our current house we have Pergo which I love. But its not an option in the new house.

 

[ReneeA]

My husband is a member of the Tile, Terrazzo, and Stone Union, so...I have tile.

I love it! It's a little hard on the back if you spend 8 hours on it, but I always were good shoes even when in the house since I have arthritic feet.

I'm in a tiny starter house with imported tumbled marble (looks like a very earthy stone) in the kitchen and laundry room. I have a matching tile for countertops and backplash with little stone accents. It's beautiful. It's funny, we actually picked out the tile to match the stone accents. My DH was at a tile distributers and they had a half box of the accents they were going to throw in the dumpster since it's such a small quantity and nobody else wanted to buy it. He brought it home, and we picked out a dark taupe tumbled marble to match it. With him installing it and at his cost, it only cost us $500 for both the kitchen and laundry room - can't beat it!


The bathroom is ceramic in a brick pattern with Oceanside blue and glass iridescent tile accents...love that, too...but it's white and shows all the dirt and hair right away. I have to clean it twice a week and swiffer in between. The next house will not have white tile or grout anywhere for that reason. Looks great, but lots of upkeep.

Needless to say, regardless if I ever want anything else...tile it is!

 

[dizneenut]

We just put tile in our kitchen last year and I LOVE it. It is soo easy to clean!!

 

[Disneyrsh]

). Right now in our current house we have Pergo which I love. But its not an option in the new house.

You can't do Pergo on a slab? I thought you could?

 

[sgtdisney]

We just built a new house and we opted for porcelain floors in the foyer/extended foyer and kitchen so it all flows from the front door into the kitchen. Hardwood was standard in the foyer but we wanted it to all flow together. So far we love it. We picked a nice beige/taupe color so it hides a lot of stuff and it really looks nice with the light colored Hickory Cabinets we picked. We also opted for ceramic in our baths as well.

Right after we moved in, and before we could seal the grout, we dropped a ketchup container and a gallon of milk (two different days), but we cleaned it up right away and it didn't stain. We have since sealed the grout.

We had sheet vinyl in our old house, which we also had built, which looked good when it was new but ended up yellowing over time, especially after we had put a plastic backed throw rug on it in the bathroom. Sheet vinyl has come a long way though over the years though, we picked an upgraded vinyl in our laundry room and it really looks nice. It really looks a lot like a stone tile.

 

[cepmom]

we have hardwood....when we bought the house it had old linoleum flooring in the kitchen. We took down the wall between the kitchen and dining room (which had hardwood) to make it an eat in kitchen, so we added the hardwood to make it match. We have hardwood through out the house except in the family room.

 

[lecach]

You can't do Pergo on a slab? I thought you could?

I think you CAN have Pergo on slab, its just that our builder doesnt offer it as one of the options.

 

[rt2dz]

I have ceramic tile & i love, love, love it. It's easy to clean, practically indestructable, always looks good, etc, etc. About to build a new house within the next few months & I will have tile again.

I actually have all tile downstairs, except wood in one room. Other rooms have oriental rugs on the floor to soften the look.

And, yes, we have a slab foundation--don't find it cold at all.

 

[Disneyrsh]

I have ceramic tile & i love, love, love it. It's easy to clean, practically indestructable, always looks good, etc, etc. About to build a new house within the next few months & I will have tile again.

I actually have all tile downstairs, except wood in one room. Other rooms have oriental rugs on the floor to soften the look.

And, yes, we have a slab foundation--don't find it cold at all.

The upcoming house (we close march 1) has a slab foundation-it will be our third house on a slab. 1st was slab, 2nd slab, 3rd basement, 4th basement. Hate basements!!!! Really psyched that this house is on a slab too.

Now I'm trying to figure out floors-somebody told me I can't put a hardwood down on a slab unless it's engineered wood, so now I'm trying to figure that out!

Anybody have 'engineered' hardwood floors? How are they different from regular hardwoods?

 

[Michelina]

Here is a hardwood buying guide from Armstrong:
http://www.armstrong.com/content2/resam/files/19301.pdf
It isn't just about their floors but it discusses the differences between solid & engineered, strip and plank, etc.
Hope that helps!

 

[goofy!]

.....