What kind of kitchen floor

[LBAK]

do you have? I am putting down a new kitchen floor and everyone around here has to say something. Don't put in hard wood, don't put down tile, etc. but no on is giving me reasons why. So tell me what work for you?

 

[TiggerStac]

We just put ceramic in our kitchen and laminate in our dining room (all one big room 12x25..split down the middle. We love it, we have had it done since about march.

 

[Metro West]

I have ceramic tile throughout the house. Tile is very easy to clean and take care of plus, there's less dust to worry about. My parents did their kitchen floor in tile once they saw mine. You should definately check into it.

 

[mom2rb]

Our new house is all tile, but the old one had laminate everywhere except the kitchen and baths. We did this because tile doesn't get damaged by a water leak. If you have wood or laminate a leak or broken pipe could do some serious damage.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I have had most flooring now and I will stick with tile for the kitchen. I cannot believe how durable it is. I used to not like tile, but not anymore.

Hardwood or Pergo has too much risk of water damage or scratching, esp. if you have pets, swimming pool, or the ice maker in the fridge (you know the ice chips that are always falling out and left by the kids on the floor).

Vinyl just gets ruined with cuts, I don't care how "great" they sell the upgraded stuff...ha!

 

[Swimnoid]

We have ceramic tile and like it because it is easy to clean and still looks really good after 10 years.

 

[JayCT]

We live in southern New England and IMHO tile tends to be too cold for our climate. Down south, it is fine, even welcomed, but here in north it gets cold in the winter unless you install radient heat under it. Also, tile can be tough on the feet if you are standing on it for a long time and if a dish falls, it will definitely break.

That said, we have hardwood. We too were advised by everyone not to do hardwood in the kitchen 13 years ago before it became really popular to do it. Now every new home has it. We love it. It is beautiful to look at and warm and comfortable on the feet. I would not have anything else. Our 13 year old floor is looking a bit beat after years of abuse by kids and our dog, but we can just have it refinished whenever we want and it will look as beautiful as the day is was installed. I love the warm look and the warm feel on cold inter days too.

You are the one who is paying for this, so install what you like. Good luck. Jay

 

[Lisa F]

There is no one "ideal" floor for the kitchen... they all have their pros and cons and you need to decide which works best for your lifestyle.

Wood floors have the benefit of being beautiful and being relatively easy to stand on, being one of the softer floors. Because it's a softer floor though, if you are hard on your kitchen floors it will get trashed more easily than other types of floor. Water is wood's enemy so you need to be particularly careful about not letting wet spots on your floor stay for too long. The other downside to wood is the expense.

Ceramic tile floors have the benefit of being virtually bulletproof (although if you drop something hard and heavy on it, you will crack tiles doing it). They also have the benefit of having many beautiful styles and colors and you can get many different looks, from faux stone to something that looks more like ceramic and from traditional to contemporary... there are so many colors and sizes and many are very reasonably priced for the material. There are a couple of downsides too... you have to ensure that your subfloor is properly prepared for it and that you don't have too much flex in your floor or you will have cracking problems. The other downside is that ceramic tile is extremely hard on your legs and back if you are standing on it for many hours. You can mitigate this by using rugs where you are likely to stand and wearing shoes in the kitchen but if you are the type of person who experiences leg and back pain after say walking around a mall with a concrete floor for an hour or two then ceramic is probably not the best choice for you.

The third major category is resilient flooring and included in that are both vinyl and linoleum in both sheet and tile. Vinyl flooring is one of the least expensive options and also one of the most comfortable underfoot. Designs have come a LONG way in the last few years and you can avoid a lot of the pitfalls of old cheap sheet vinyl (like the little crevices that won't come clean)... you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between vinyl and ceramic just looking at high end sheet vinyl products until you touch it. There are many patterns and colors. Linoleum is a great alternative if you are environmentally conscious because it's made of all natural materials but it's quite a bit more expensive than vinyl (but does have great marbled colors). The downside to vinyl is that in general it is not really considered a "high end" product. You may or may not like that look of it but as far as price vs. function, it's the hands down winner.

I personally have VCT, or vinyl composite tile (also known as commercial vinyl tile) in my kitchen. It was really inexpensive and fits the warm, cozy, vintage feeling I wanted in there. I also don't give a rat's patoot about what's high end or not, I just get what I like... so I hope no one thinks my comment about vinyl not being considered high end to be an insult to those who have it.

 

[FroggyinArk]

ok tile is great on slab/ concrete floors,, not so good on pier and beam flooring,, vynal is great for an easy to install, and easy to change out floor, its also cheep. hardwood is nice looks great, but is very high maintenance and not a good choice for water prone areas i dont like the pergo/laminate floors, they are nice but if you get one scratch, you may have to replace hte entire floor.

 

[hlbtimes2]

I currently have ugly vinyl flooring. In the next year or so I hope to replace it with either ceramic tile or wood flooring. It will depend on what I do in the rest of the house. If we do wood (or bamboo- my first choice) in the living room we may do the kitchen as well. I like the look of it all being the same. If we decide the wood is to much $$, we'll do carpet in the living dinning room and ceramic tile in the kitchen.

 

[Allie322]

We have an Armstrong laminate that looks like stone tiles. We've only had it since December but so far, so good. We really like it. We considered tile but ruled it out for 2 reasons: we live in New England and it's cold, and the bigger issue was that logistically, it would have been very difficult to have the tile installed (staying off it for a day or whatever it was).
This is our floor http://www.armstrong.com/resflram/na/laminate/en/us/prod_detail.asp?itemId=74426.0

We have a dog and we enter our home right onto the floor. We have had no issues with scratching and it is super-easy to take care of---vacuum or Swiffer and a damp mop.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

That said, we have hardwood. We too were advised by everyone not to do hardwood in the kitchen 13 years ago before it became really popular to do it. Now every new home has it. We love it. It is beautiful to look at and warm and comfortable on the feet. I would not have anything else. Our 13 year old floor is looking a bit beat after years of abuse by kids and our dog, but we can just have it refinished whenever we want and it will look as beautiful as the day is was installed. I love the warm look and the warm feel on cold inter days too.

Can you please tell me how the heck do you keep it looking good?
We moved into our Spec house over a year ago and we got dogs and they destroyed the hardwood in 1 month, their nails ruined it. We have hardwood in the living areas.

Also Butters drinks from the bowl and drips water like a trail of bread crumbs...how do you handle the water dish with your dog?

 

[icebrat001]

We have ceramic tile in the kitchen, I'm pretty happy with it, it gets really slippery though so be careful. Lots of people complain that ceramic is too cold or hard on your back, porcelain tile is a bit more durable *i think* and it is better on your back that ceramic.

You couldn't always but engineered wood flooring on the kitchen like wilsonart or something, but I wouldn't recommend pure hardwood floors for the kitchen, as it would show every ding known to man and if you had a leaking appliance and missed it your floor is ruined.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I also have laminate that looks like tile. I like real tile, but I have hip and back problems and wanted something a little more forgiving to stand on than tile. We've had laminate before and didn't have a problem. We do have to watch the scratching, but haven't had a problem so far. The only time we had a problem at our old house was a recliner that scratched our floor (a screw on the bottom of the chair) and when someone broke a window and broke into the house. Both of those times were understandable scratches--not normal wear and tear. As far as the water, we do watch things that are spilled on it. The flooring is in the laundry room, also, and we really should have a tub under our washer just in case it leaks. A stray ice cube shouldn't be a big deal, but we do try to pick any up that fall. We have a rubber mat under the dog's water. The floor is great for hiding dirt--it never looks dirty, unlike the vinyl floor that it replaced.

 

[Disney Doll]

We have hardwood with a water-based acrylic finish and I love it. I clean it with diluted window cleaner, and it shines beautifully. It takes a beating. I don't have kids but I have dogs, and a very busy house with folks in and out all day. We don't live a quiet life here. The floor is always great.

If you decide to go with ceramic tile, pick one with some texture to it. My late in-laws had ceramic tile put in their kitchen and it was smooth, and when it got wet it was like skating rink.

 

[TiggerStac]

We live in southern New England and IMHO tile tends to be too cold for our climate. Down south, it is fine, even welcomed, but here in north it gets cold in the winter unless you install radient heat under it. Also, tile can be tough on the feet if you are standing on it for a long time and if a dish falls, it will definitely break.

That said, we have hardwood. We too were advised by everyone not to do hardwood in the kitchen 13 years ago before it became really popular to do it. Now every new home has it. We love it. It is beautiful to look at and warm and comfortable on the feet. I would not have anything else. Our 13 year old floor is looking a bit beat after years of abuse by kids and our dog, but we can just have it refinished whenever we want and it will look as beautiful as the day is was installed. I love the warm look and the warm feel on cold inter days too.

You are the one who is paying for this, so install what you like. Good luck. Jay

I have to agree w/the cold tile bit. Luckily 99% of the time I am wearing socks/slippers (even in the summer). DS comments on it being cold and my DH is a polar bear so he doesn't care.

 

[Quinn222]

I have tile. It's beautiful but man is it hqard on the back and legs. I will not go with it again. I'd go back to wood or pergo or something like that.

 

[belle&beast]

We have ceramic tile and love it in the kitchen and bathrooms. We have hardwood in the greatroom, which I love, but I am glad it is not in the kitchen because of all the water spills with little kids. If you do opt for tile, get a dark grout and a textured tile- it can get really slippery. Have fun!

 

[barkley]

we had vinal in our first house-not great to look at but easy to keep clean. we had tile in the house we just sold-with the exception of keeping the grout clean (we did the sealing thing but there are still some things that stain-coffee, juice, punch even if you wipe them up right away) it was great (and after having servpro come in and clean the grout it looked like new after 9 years). the current house we are in has hardwoods-and now i remember why i carpeted over the original hardwoods in our first home! i am constantly dust mopping it-you can see every little thing that falls on the floor (and i think they are magnets when it comes to dust bunnies and pet hair). in the kitchen they are a pain! if i have a spill i have to wipe it up and then use the hardwood floor cleaner on it or it gets a dullness such that the dustmop gets stuck going over it.

i think when we buy again we will look at all the options-there seem to be so many choices out there now. and the laminates can look so close to whatever material they are copying-but are much easier to keep up.

 

[cakesnkids]

As I type I have a bare nekkid slab in my living, hall, bathroom and laundry, and 650 sq ft of porcelin tile to be laid on it tomorrow. We had wood, and they were improperly laid (we purchased this house immediately post construction) and they were HORRID. The one good thing hurricane Katrina did for me was my freezer leaked moisture onto the flooring in the kitchen and the awesome adjuster we had found it (we missed it) and our insurance sent us SOME money for the floor. So...I'm adding my money to it and we're putting in tile, and I am SO HAPPY!!