Burning Question: What Wood You Pick?
We asked a similar question a while back with regards to your bedroom preferences, but on the subject of the kitchen floor, do you like sleek easy-wipe tile, simple stress-free vinyl/linoleum or warm and welcoming hardwood/cork/bamboo? There’s definitely more than one way to skin a cat- er, kitchen- so we’d love to hear what you prefer underfoot. Do tell.
And speaking of flooring, here’s how to install peel & stick tile, paint wood floors, pick the right rug, and even stain a concrete porch- all without breaking the bank (or even much of a sweat).
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Wood floors all the way!
Style wise the hardwood wins out. It looks awesome. However, have you ever seen a kitchen where the wood did not swell or warp around the dishwasher or sink? I have not. I know, I know, all the companies swear it will last forever but I don’t buy it.
If I had my choice I would do tile. However, with small kids there is something to be said for vinyl.
I prefer wood in most areas of the house. I like how with age, it sort of grows with your house. The natural wear and tear gives the room some character without looking damaged. Plus it’s the natural feel that makes it so cozy!
I have an old house (1920′s) with beautiful original oak hardwood. When I bought the house last year the floors were covered with carpet and tile. I have removed every square inch of carpet and will someday remove the tile from the kitchen. There is no reason to cover up that natural beauty when you can protect it with a couple coats of poly!
Hardwood all the way!! Especially the wide planks like the photo above. Awesome!
I tend towards wood/hardwood/cork/bamboo – Anything that has a natural look and feel since I love to walk around bare-footed. BUT as I am a wild cooker I also need a floor that can be cleaned easily and does forgive knocked over bottles, dropped objects and most of all water/moisture. We have a dark green lino flooring right now. Nice colour but I just hate the feel of it.
I adore wood in just about everyroom of a home BUT our mudroom and kitchen have tile. It is so much easier to take a damp sponge when something spills and wipe it up real quick! Messy cooking in the kitchen and muddy boots in the mudroom REQUIRE tile :)
WOOD
Good Morning!
Well – if I had my pick of all picks I’d say some type of natural stone/tile. My mom loves her hardwood kitchen. However, in the renovation of my house (getting close to moving in and that is scary thought) I chose vinyl. I chose it because I could get the best they made for a good price and put it in myself. I have been very pleased with it. It’s beautiful, cost less than 200 for my 10×14′ kitchen and was surprising easy to install. The prep work to get the old floors up and the new underlayment down was much worse. I have to say that I’m not sure why it’s so out of favor it really is a tremendous product they put 20 year warranties behind it how can you beat that? I would chose it again for sure! I’m bringing it back. I can send you a link if you like to see the product and I plan to send you guys some pics when I’m moved in.
Delaware – J
Currently we have tile b/c that’s what came with our house when we bought it. Since we live in Phoenix I like the tile b/c it stays nice and cool in the hot, hot summers. But we are considering sometime in the future putting in dark bamboo floors because that’s a look I love, nice and rich and eco-friendly.
Hey Sherry! First – I love your blog! Been a fan ever since I “rolled up” on it 8 months ago. =) Keep the great and inspiring posts coming!!
Now to answer your question. I just posted something similar to this on my blog http://homeat6.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/kitchen-cravings/ because I’m trying to figure out which flooring to go with for my new kitchen. At first I thought, for sure beautiful wood flooring! But then, I saw yours and John’s absolutely beautiful marble tile and instantly fell inlove. Sad to say, none of the stores in michigan carry it. :( I so would’ve bought it!! So, needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing all of the responses on this post in hopes that it will inspire me! :)
Take care,
- N
Hi guys,
I am in the middle of renovation right now and choose wood-like tiles.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_JcOaMCRDU4g/SnsTGOTRW7I/AAAAAAAAFRE/f4cXY6LlKtA/s400/DSC02374.JPG
The rest of my floors is hardwood.
And that’s our renovation photo album (for those of you who might be interested): http://picasaweb.google.com/pazaruvane/UDoma
I have a question for you – what do you think about hardwood countertops on the kitchen cabinets? I use the kitchen a lot but would splurge on wood countertops if I receive some support from people that have already done the same.
Here, in Bulgaria (where I live – see guys, you have fans all around the world :) people don’t use hardwood countertops at all and I could hardly find anyone so I can receive a real opinion – so what would you say?
Hey Nadia,
Ikea sells butcher block counters that are rich and amazing looking- they just get better with a little wear or tear. We definitely think as long as you keep them sealed (but food safe) wood counters can actually be a great option. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I did finished concrete throughout the first floor in my house. It is a chocolate-y brown and looks beautiful. I live in Arizona, where finished concrete seems to be a bit more common than other areas of the country. The concrete helps keep things cool and it is easy to keep clean. In addition, switching out a couple rugs or breaking out some paint changes the entire look of my kitchen. I don’t have to worry about out dated linoleum or tiles.
I will always choose hardwood over any other flooring. We have ceramic tile in our kitchen, because that’s what was there when we moved in.
We went with tile when we gutted the kitchen, but man oh man is it cold! It’ll help when we heat our basement (someday). Our problem was that the hardwood had been removed from the kitchen years ago, but was still in the rest of the main floor. We couldn’t find a new wood floor that really matched the rest of the floors and felt that the transition would be really awkward. So, tile it is!
However – something else to keep in mind for all you gourmet chefs out there…tile is hard on your back. My MIL told me that before we put it in, and now I really believe her! At least it looks beautiful. : )
Nothing beats the look and charm of real wood…except having to keep it up with multiple dogs and thier nails!
We’ve always had to choose tile or pergo floors becuase of our fur babies. It’s amazing how real wood like some of the pergo floors look now.
After remodeling for 15 months (and still not quite done after another 4 months), we landed ceramic tile in the kitchen and hickory hardwoods throughout the rest of the house. I love the hardwoods, but would not want them in the kitchen. I’m too paranoid about protecting them from water. The tile, however, is not my favorite either. But it will do.
That’s easy. Wood. No contest. It’s beautiful, easy to clean, lasts forever and looks beautiful forever. My floors are 15 years old and people always ask if I just had them refinished or newly installed. Nope, they’re the same ones that were put in when the house was built and I can’t see them needing refinished for another 15 or 30 years. No cupping, no water damage, and no wear to the finish. Just gorgeous floors.
Wood.
We recently installed a wood laminate (Realtouch by Dupont) throughout out entire first floor. It has the durability and the easy maintainence quality of vinyl, and the warm texture and beauty of hardwood. Plus with our house being from the 1970′s, the floors have settled and rather than spending more money and time on trying to level the floors entirely (which you need to do with hardwood), the wood laminate is floating.
Need to send you some befores and afters of some of the work we’ve done on our house. Especially the kitchen, quite a transformation (and on a budget too!).
I love how wood looks on a Kitchen but to be honest, wood in a kitchen is very hard to mantein and also not very common here in Spain, well, to tell the truth, you will never see a wood floor on a Spanish kitchen!!So, i’ll say tiles. I love cooking to much and I have to sweep it out once a day and washed every two days, so, no wood. It’s a shame, though. Congrats on the bathroom, it’s amazing!
We have laminate flooring in our kitchen until we had water damage. We were able to upgrade to a beautiful tile with a rectangle shape and I think it totally wins! I love the look. It adds the final touch of modern to our kitchen.
In response to Nadia, my aunt has a 1920s bungalow, and the original wood countertops are still absolutely gorgeous! She seals them, and uses as mild soap to clean them. Definitely get better with age, just like hardwood floors.
Last year, I mentioned to one of my coworkers that I was looking into slate floors for our kitchen remodel. She happened to have about 8 boxes of left over slate from her house, so she gave them to me! It wasn’t until afterwards that I did my research and realized how cold it was underfoot, and luckily we hadn’t installed it yet.
Since the kitchen is our main entrance to the house (and also our laundry room, curse little houses!) we realized the laminate that’s been in there since we moved in has held up after many spills and appliance leaks and floods. It’s also piece of cake to clean with a swiffer wet jet, and isn’t too cold. So we plan to replace it with a different color laminate in the near future :) now what to do with all that slate tile…
Hey S&J,
We have hardwood in our kitchen and love it. We redid the floors in the main living areas of our house 6 years ago (living room, dining & kitchen) and chose to replace the carpet & linoleum with hardwoods throughout for a more cohesive look with our open floorplan.
The only downside to hardwoods is that when we renovate the rest of our kitchen, I’m not sure what I will do about the cabinet color. My husband hates painted or white cabinets and I don’t like wood floors with similarly colored wood cabinets (which is what we have now, oak floors & cabinets). Any suggestions?
What about looking around at the furnishings you have in other rooms on those wood floors? If you gravitate towards dark chocolate tables and chairs, you’ll begin to imagine how lovely darker wood cabinets would look when paired with the same floor, etc. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
My Husband and I are starting a major kitchen renovation February 1st. EEK! The kitchen is currently closed off from the rest of the house and has tile, but we will be opening it up completely to the rest of the house, which has hardwood. We considered doing hardwood through the kitchen; the hardwood we have now has been pretty abused and really need to be refinished anyway. However, I wanted to maintain a delineation between the kitchen and dining, so we decided on a cork flooring instead. We’ll need to put in some additional oak flooring where are changing the footprint slightly, so we’ll be refinishing all the oak floors to get a seamless look…
This was an agonizing decision, but cork is so wonderful under the feet and supposedly pretty easy to maintain as long as you are diligent about wiping up spills and using cork friendly cleaners. Also, cork is a floating floor, so you can more easily replace a damaged peice of cork than tile. It’s not easy, but it can be done!
Bamboo/cork for sure. Eco friendly, renewable, and very very trendy right now.
Plus, you want to be able to see your dog on your floor – we have a white dog, and a white floor – so every so often little Riley disappears underfoot.
I love the hardwood and think it is so sleek, but after seeing my moms being destroyed by kids, pets, etc, I’d probably go with the tile!
First choice wood, second choice tile (grout lines can become pretty dirty, so careful sealing and cleaning is a must), dead last choice – vinyl. Because it’s many people’s last, or budget, choice, it really brings down resale. Personally, I hate my vinyl floor. It’s textured, and virtually impossible to get perfectly clean as the dirt likes to cling to the bottom of each little dimple.
We have big tiles, cream-colored, throughout the first floor: hallways, kitchen, foyer, mudroom. They came with the house. I think they are a royal pain to keep clean. Our 3rd summer here we scrubbed and sealed all the grout (it took us 3 8-hour days) because the people who lived here before let it get really nasty. I still don’t think the grout is the color that it should be in all places; I think grease has stained it in the kitchen area. Also, besides the recessed grout, the tile itself is not flat, which makes mopping a pain.
I think if I had a choice I’d get hardwood, but I’m not sure that we’ll ever have the $$ to replace all that tile.
Hi,
although I love hardwood in general I would go for tiles for the kitchen. In our current apartment we only have vinyl.
I wear shoes in the kitchen anyway, so the cold feeling of tiles isn’t a problem, and whenever I spill anything I don’t have to worry.
We put hardwoods in rest of the downstairs except for the kitchen becouse I didn’t want to worry about water spills. With kids tile was a better way to go for us.
I’m torn. I have hardwood in my whole house, and I suspect it is under the linoleum in the kitchen. But I love the look of black and white tiles in a checkerboard effect. I feel that this would look more appropriate to the style of the house.
I’m remodeling my kitchen in stages, and the next (and last!) stage is the floors. I love the look of hardwood, but I was concerned about how it would hold up in the kitchen, so I bought slate-look porcelain tile. My house is only 15 years old and the oak flooring in the entry is so beat up and terrible looking. Dull, scratched, worn…I’ve only lived there a year so I can’t imagine what the previous owners did to it! I also have a large, slobbery dog so I worry about how the wood in the kitchen would hold up to him.
I love the look of wood floors, but my entire house has tile. I live in Miami, and it’s the “thing” here. Having tile floors in the kitchen has been pretty helpful since I am always spilling things and it’s pretty easy to clean up, Unfortunately, I have chipped a few tiles and will eventually have to replace them. I wish my entire house had hardwood floors though, they are just so beautiful. :)
Hard wood all the way!! I’m sure linoleum is cheaper (I’m assuming?) but I think the wood makes it look classier.
Sarah
p.s. I showed my husband the vanity transformation yesterday. Usually when I show off your work he rolls his eyes and tells me to enjoy apartment living (and free maintenance) while I can. Yesterday his eyes popped open and he said, “WOW that’s really cool!!” I think I almost have him convinced to let me take on as many DIY projects as I want to when we finally buy a house.
I love love love hardwood floors, but unfortunately we can’t have them because our house is on a slab. The previous owners put down cheap wood lineleum, which we hate. It warps and swells the same as wood would do on our slab and it chips off like crazy, plus it looks completely fake. We plan to replace it with porcelain tile in the spring. The next house we buy must have a basement or crawlspace!
Definately wood and then my number two pick would be linoleum (not vinyl). For me, tile is just too cold and hard (one too many dishes have found their demise upon my tile). I also don’t find tile easy to clean with all that grout~ok, maybe I’m just over the tile in my kitchen so I’m venting. :)
Wood floors all the way!! We have white cabinetry, kashmir white granite, and white subway tile backsplash- we needed something to anchor the room…so we chose dark wood floors to balance everything~ we love it and it’s much warmer under foot than tile (in my opinion). :)
Wood please! So pretty!
I love wood floors! Luckily when we got our condo 8 months ago, the previous owners installed bamboo flooring!
yeah wood! our house is almost 90 years old, and the floors are still going strong… though we did just install bamboo flooring in the kitchen (ourselves!), and we LOVE love love it. really warm, cosy, sexy feel!
I am DROOLING over the floors in that picture! I want them everywhere in my life.
I’ve tended to live in places with tile in the kitchen, and enjoy that. I prefer the look of wood, and plan to look into bamboo or cork for my next house….
In the kitchen, I wouldn’t go with anything other than tile. I LOVE how it looks. It’s very easy to care for and wears very well. I wouldn’t have linoleum … even if it was free! I hate how it looks, wears and to clean it is a pain. Hate the stuff! Good luck!
Hardwood, no question. We have 50+ year old (original) hardwood in our kitchen, as well as in the rest of our home, and it all still looks amazing. It’s so warm and inviting. I love it.
Hardwood, definitely. We have almost 100 year old hardwood in our house, even the kitchen, and it is beautiful. It hasn’t been destroyed by the many dogs and children who have lived here, including our own high-energy giant. It isn’t warped around the sink or the dishwasher, it isn’t hard to clean, or cold, and it will always look classic, never dated.
I think it depends on a lot of things, but generally speaking, I prefer wood. Our kitchen (which will be completely renovated this year) is tiled but the rooms leading to it are wood. The kitchen is also fairly open and will be completely open to the living room once a wall is removed, so I think in those cases, you should have a seamless transition from one room to the other. In my opinion, nothing ruins an open floor plan like two different types of flooring (example in our home, dark wood to a light tile).
I LOVE wood floors in a kitchen. However, when we remodeled our kitchen floors, we chose wood laminate – the price was right, we could do the labor ourselves since it was a floating floor, and it is supposed to be incredibly durable (a must since we have a dog… and we’re pretty clumsy, ourselves). It really does look like real wood, and since it’s laid over old wood floor, it creaks like wood floors, too. I also must say – I’m impressed with how well it’s held up to us and our home improvements… so far even dropping a hammer on it didn’t even leave a scratch! Not too shabby, I think. :)
I grew up wood floors throughout the house and loved it. The house we are currently in we picked slate tile floors for the kitchen, which matched our countertops perfectly! Although the rest of the house has wood floors, the tile in the kitchen looks great and is easy to clean. I suppose I’m torn on my opinion here, but I would have to say if you have a clear distinction between your kitchen and the rest of the house it might be nice to change up the flooring, but if your kitchen is open to the rest of the house, keeping with wood I think looks better.
If I had my druthers, I’d have hard wood all over my house and beadboard walls with chair rail and thick molding in every room.