I need a new kitchen floor......

[Denisemomof4]

and I'm SO undecided about what to do. Our home is totally open concept. Once you open the front door you can see the large living space all around you, and then the kitchen in the back. The flooring in the front of the house is all maple. The kitchen is vinyl. The wood and vinyl meet and are flush, so we don't have too many options to keep the floors flush. I need to keep them flush so I can get the machine in which keeps my mom standing. (she is unable to stand on her own and loves to watch us cook in the kitchen.)

 

For me personally, I do NOT know what the hype is with tile flooring. It's SO hard, even harder than the wood floors, and makes my feet totally ache. Also, it's so hard that if you drop ANYTHING on it, the item completely shatters, and you're lucky if the tile doesn't crack. I hate the grout issues. So, tile, for us, is not an option. For the above reasons, and also because I need to keep my floors flushed.

 

I don't like wood in kitchens or bathrooms. They can get ruined from water. In the summer the kids will run in from the pool to go to the bathroom. Wood is out.

 

Laminate flooring...... well there are some I really like, but I have never seen any in the house that do NOT scratch. This makes me hesitate. I went to one home and was shocked at how bad the floor looked. BUT, the kids are pretty wild there...... hopefully I won't have to worry about that. :001_smile:

 

The kitchen is the room in the house which gets the hardest use. We all love to bake and cook, the boys LOVE to go in and eat. Things drop ALL THE TIME - knives, etc. Would laminate work in the kitchen? Also, I don't even know if I can have this as I don't know if it will be flush with my wood flooring.

 

I love the simplicity of vinyl, to clean and maintain. They have some really nice options these days. I was looking at some "airstep" type that was really nice. But why don't newer homes use vinyl? Am I missing something?s Is it not a popular option because it's so cheap? Well, I don't think that's a reason! I was absolutely SHOCKED at the estimate we got! Our kitchen floor space where this will go is 16 x 12 and the total cost was $1700?! I was absotely SHOCKED, and dh was FLOORED!!!!! :lol:

 

Can you please help me decide which option might be best for us? Are there others I haven't mentioned..... because I don't know about them?

 

Oh, my hair dresser mentioned that she used sand tile in her playroom. I haven't even researched that, never heard of it!

 

ladies, please help!

 

Denise

[MotherMayI]

I recently saw marmoleum http://www.themarmoleumstore.com/ in a home and I really liked it. It has ton's of options and I believe it is environmentally friendly. It's also very durable. I don't know about affordability- but it may be worth checking out.

 

:DBest wishes on your search.

[Mad Jenny Flint]

It's large, marble-ish looking black and ivory squares set to look like diamond patterns in the kitchen/dining. It is great when you drop things, doesn't make your legs or feet ache, and absorbs sound so if you are the first one up you don't wake the whole house.

[Tree House Academy]

Those above options are NEAT!

 

We have tile with hardwood that is flush. I guess I really can't help much...other than to say that I wear my New Balances when I cook standing on the hard tile floor. ;)

Edited May 8, 2009 by Tree House Academy
added the word "standing"...because we don't cook ON the floor. :)

[coralloyd]

Have you looked at this vinyl "wood" flooring, it's water proof: http://reviews.homedepot.com/1999/100592904/reviews.htm

 

We'll be placing this in our bathroom. It really does look and feel like wood. You can see it in person at Home Depot. They have some you can buy right at the store, or you can special order different ones. Our Safeway store has this in the produce section, and Home Depot had a sample section on thier floor for a while. It really holds up very well. Plus it seems super easy to install.

[KatieJ]

We wandered around the floor dilema for years! Finally last summer we were remodeling and had to make a decision.

I was sure vinyl was going to be my choice, but I never found quite the right piece.

We ended up with laminate. I can't remember the brand, but I just went to a discount retailer I trust and got what they recommended. We talked a long time before he offered me his choices.

It has been down 10 months now and the only serious scratch was from hubby when he installed the stove. :glare:

 

There are huge differences in quality for laminate and the better quality ones don't scratch easily.

I use a swiffer dry cloth that I get wet in the sink for clean up. I did buy a stick vac at Costco this spring and that makes sweeping a breeze!

 

My floor goes from the back entrance thru the kitchen, into the dining room and down the main hall to the bedrooms. It makes the space look that much bigger when it is all one shade.

 

We did have to put pads on all the chairs and the table legs.

 

Our neighbors put in the vinyl that looks like wood and it is gorgeous too!

Edited May 8, 2009 by KatieinMich

[rainforest mama]

We have laminate in our current house. I'm not that keen on it, especially in the kitchen. If it gets too wet, it swells up and is ruined. I'm more paranoid about this floor than I was about our maple floor in our last house. So, I wouldn't go with laminate in the kitchen. We have it here, but only because the previous owners installed it. I keep putting in the hint with the hubby for a new tile floor. At least with tile you don't have to worry about it getting wet. :001_smile:

 

HTH, Lana.

[HSMom2One]

I recently saw marmoleum http://www.themarmoleumstore.com/ in a home and I really liked it. It has ton's of options and I believe it is environmentally friendly. It's also very durable. I don't know about affordability- but it may be worth checking out.

 

:DBest wishes on your search.

 

I was just going to suggest Marmoleum and noticed that someone beat me to it. From what you describe, I think this would be a nice option for you. It comes in some gorgeous colors and you can go solid or even create a pattern or design with varying colors, textures, etc.

 

When we do our kitchen remodel, I am going to go with Marmoleum too. It is nice looking, durable, eco friendly AND it is easy to care for.

 

Man, I sure do sound like a commercial! No, they did not pay me to say this. :)

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[elizabeth]

 

http://www.armstrong.com/resflram/na/home/en/us/flooring-buyers-guide-linoleum.html Read to learn the real reason that true linoleum is best for your home and the planet. I have this ,it is wonderful beyond compare and not horrid for my back and feet.Your floor must be even however or it will not install well. You must use professional installers as well it is a specialized process. I love real linoleum .

[Mom0012]

We've got laminate in our kitchen that's almost 10 years old. We've only got one scratch on the floor and that happened when my husband was moving something heavy that had a nail sticking out the bottom of it. When my kids were little, I even used to let them ride their tricycles in the kitchen and never had any damage from that.

 

We haven't had any problems with water damage either. And, believe me, our dishwasher has backed up and gotten the floor totally wet and my kids take turn doing the dishes -- ages 19, 9 and 7 -- so the floor can get quite wet from that activity. I believe the brand we used was Wilsonart? You use glue when you put the boards down, so maybe that helps make it more waterproof than the ones that just snap together.

 

Anyway, I've been very happy with this floor.

 

Lisa

[Carrie12345]

We have laminate in our kitchen. 4 kids, 2 large dogs, 2 cats, and no scratches... in the kitchen.

The laminate in our entryway hasn't fared as well. The floor wasn't laid properly (before we bought the house), so we have some gaps in that area. The planks that are gapped do have chips on the corners and edges because things "catch" so easily.

 

Dh just laid laminate in the girls' bedroom. I wish I could remember which brand. I actually took a knife to the samples (regular dinner knife- not a steak knife, lol) and NONE of them scratched.

[bettyandbob]

We had a pipe burst a couple of years ago. As a result we had to replace all our floors, wood, vinyl and laminate. I had laminate in the kitchen, wood in the rest of the first floor, vinyl in the bathrooms in the first and basement and carpet in the basement. A lot of water can destroy anything.

 

Now, I have wood in the kitchen. It's great. The floor is continuous throughout that level. It has not be damaged by normal water splashes in the kitchen. We have an area rug by the front door, but the kids were not as careful as I wanted when they tracked in ice, salt, and snow for two winters. That has not been a problem.

 

Laminate is damaged by water just as easily as would. Laminate is wood particles. I have laminate in my half bath now and it's great, but I would never put it in a full bath, my family is not careful enough for that.

 

We put laminate in our basement after the pipeburst and it's been great.

 

The brand of laminate we got was Wilsonart and the hardwood floor was a top line. I forget the brand, but it had something like 9 or 12 layers of finish on it (the pieces were prefinished, which is standard ).

 

That's my experience with floor.

[gandpsmommy]

Dh laid laminate flooring in our kitchen and dining room at the first house we bought. I loved it. It looked great, felt good, and was so very easy to clean. Dd was a toddler when we lived at that house. She rode her tricycle and her little car on the floor and never scratched it. In fact, I can't remember any scratches or signs of wear in the two years that we lived there.

 

We never had any water issues, either, even though I am not the most careful/coordinated person, so I know I dropped liquids on the kitchen floor. I did have a nice rug/mat right in front of the sink. It took major neglect to ruin that floor, which is what happened when we moved and rented the house out. The renters allowed a leak under the kitchen sink to go on for weeks before they notified us. By that time the floor right in front of the sink had been sitting soaked in water for days and had warped.

 

The good thing about the snap-and -ock laminate, though, is that you can buy a few extra and just replace the boards that have been damaged. Unfortunately we had bought our flooring at an amazing clearance price because it was the last few cartons of a discontinued line, and we hadn't had the foresight to purchase extra boards just in case. Also, the renters' German Shepherd dog had been left in the house alone for days and weeks at a time while they traveled, so he has managed to chew some of the trim pieces.

 

At our next house we had hardwood floors in the living and dining room and vinyl in the kitchen. We replaced the kitchen floor with new vinyl that I just loved when we were staging the house to sell. I wish I could have brought it with me. It was beautiful. I think a lot of people think of vinyl as a cheaper option, but I think the new styles can look really nice and are durable and easy to clean.

 

When we moved to our current house there was ceramic tile in the front entryway and kitchen, and I really don't like it. I agree with you on it's poor qualities. It's always cold. I have broken more dishes, vases, glasses, etc. here than in any other house because if something is dropped on it, it is going to break. I have seen some homes with beautiful tile floors, finished to a polished gleam. But the previous owners had not sealed our floor, and we haven't because we're planning to replace it soon. So, it always looks dirty, even when I've just mopped. I will be happy to be done with it.

 

We're considering several option for our flooring replacement for our open living room/dining room, kitchen and hallway areas. I love the look and feel of real hardwood. We had it in our living room/dining room of our old house, and I miss it. But I am concerned about water damage in the kitchen and about how easy it will be to clean. Although, our son was a baby and toddler at our last house and he dropped all sorts of things from his high chair and booster seat onto our hardwood floor in the dining room, and it survived.

 

We're also considering laminate because it was so easy to clean. I could just spot clean with Windex and run a Swiffer mop over it. It was so easy to keep looking great. And when you cleaned it, it looked fabulous. I'm not concerned about water damage because I've had it in a kitchen before, and I know that we won't be allowing leaks to go unchecked for weeks, so I'm thinking we'd be okay. My concerns about it are whether it will be durable enough for us now. Ds was just a baby when we moved from that house. He's now 51/2 and very active. He's an adventurous boy who moves around a lot, brings a lot of interesting things in from nature, etc. I'm not sure how laminate would fare. Also, we only lived in that house for two years, and we had to replace the floor after five years because of the renters' irresponsibility, so I will never know how many years the floor might have held up under normal circumstances. We're looking for a long-term floor. We don't want to have to replace it again in a few years.

 

We're not considering vinyl just because we want a uniform look for all of the rooms that are open to each other. Right now we have tile in the kitchen and entryway that opens into the kitchen, and carpet in the hallway that the entryway leads to, and the lr/dr that is open to both the hallway and the kitchen. It chops things up a bit. I think our space would look bigger and brighter with one flooring. But, if I had the kind of kitchen that I had at my old house, that was a separate room to itself, I would definitely choose the same vinyl we put down before we moved.

 

So, I guess I'm really no help. Good luck deciding.