THE KITCHEN GUIDE BOOK

Kitchen Floor Material Options

Kitchen flooring from a longevity stand point are of course the water impervious types, however I have to say that wood floors look the best to me in a kitchen, and are softer on the feet than tile. Yes I know, if there is a water disaster wood floors suffer. I am usually a function over aesthetics kind of guy, but in this case not.

The best water proof type flooring materials in the kitchen are ceramic tile, porcelain tile, natural stone tile, vinyl, and some commercial sheet goods. Next on down the line are materials that one water flood doesn't destroy like some laminate floors, and cork. Then there are kitchen floors that one flood will cause repairs like solid wood. Although solid wood floors have a saving grace, and can be sanded and refinished!

The argument could be made that the best kitchen flooring is the toughest possible, which is probably porcelain tile. After all the kitchen is the highest traffic room in a house. I will take the other side of the argument which is that kitchen floor styles change quick. If you have noticed tile styles change much quicker than wood floor styles. It is also easier, and cheaper to refinish a wood floor to a different color, than it is to tear up a whole tile floor in 7 years when the style changes.

Kitchen Floor Installation Tips 

If your doing a whole kitchen remodel think about heights of the new cabinets. When setting kitchen cabinets always fur up the cabinets to finish floor height because the appliances are built for this height, especially dishwashers and under cabinet refrigerators.

In my opinion install solid wood kitchen floors under cabinets before cabinet installation because it makes the floor stronger, and automatically brings the cabinets up to finish floor height. It is usually best to do the final finish on the wood floor after everything else is finished.

Install kitchen tile floors up to the cabinets after the cabinets are in, if you change the tile later before the cabinets it will be much easier to tear up. have the countertops installed before floor tile because heavy countertops can warp the floor, warping is best done before tile. On one job the granite floor tile was put in before the cabinets, and when the 1500 pound island granite was put in the middle of the room, the floor joist sagged and the natural stone floor tile developed fracture lines.