Adulting

[orangerful]

Well, it has been a crazy few weeks. Wisconsin trip, our friend from Chicago flying out wit his 2 year old for the weekend and to top it all off, our dishwasher sprung a leak and destroyed the hardwood floor in our kitchen.

We are thinking we will replace the hardwood with something else - wood seems like a pain in the kitchen where water is always a factor. So I'm doing a bit of crowd sourcing here - what do you have for the floor in your kitchen? Pros and Cons?

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Sorry to hear about your floor! I completely agree that wood floors in the kitchen is a bad choice, not just for leaks but also just the frequent heat and humidity in one would make it more likely to warp over time.

We've got vinyl in ours and I had hoped for tile like we have in the bathroom. However, I kind of wish they were reversed. The problem with tile in the bathroom is that it is very slippery and we have a few mats but it can still be a problem. Vinyl can also be slippery when wet but not as much. The plus is that tile is more easily cleaned than vinyl for the most part, especially if you're just wiping up a spill but it can be harder to clean stained grout. And, of course, vinyl is less expensive to purchase and install.

The house I grew up in had wood floors but a kind of formica tile in the kitchen. It was pretty easy to clean and didn't have the grout gaps, but I haven't seen anything like that in a long time.

One piece of advice about vinyl I'd offer is to not go with anything white or light colored as it's likely to look old and stained more quickly. A grey, brown, blue, etc. would be better. There are a lot of nice patterns these days too so you could even go with something that looks like hardwood or, in our case, mimics marble.

[angrboda]

I've had wooden kitchen floors before. I've never found water to be much of a problem unless there's a lot of it like with your dishwasher accident. But really, that would be true for almost any floor type, except possibly tiled. Right now we have a dreadful linoleum that came with the house. Probably original because the kitchen is. I don't mind linoleum because it's easy to keep clean but I would like to what they were thinking to choose a black linoleum with a slight grey marbling effect in it. It just always somehow looks filthy. Couldn't tell you how many times I've scrubbed at flecks only to realise they're part of the floor. Don't get black and grey marbled linoleum!

[alix]

It came with my house, but I have laminate flooring in my kitchen. That article link says to keep it dry, but it was sealed between the seams to make it a little more waterproof (as determined by a professional floor installer).

If I had a 'real' house an unlimited budget, I'd probably go for stone tile.