Kitchen flooring dilemma

[Anonymous]

We are about to begin our first big kitchen renovation. Right now I am researching flooring options. The kitchen is adjacent to a dining room with hardwood oak floors, and we are removing the wall between the two rooms, so it would be lovely to have the hardwoods extend across the entire new space. But I know that new wood flooring in the kitchen would not match the 70-year-old flooring in the dining area. Contractors we have spoken with are recommending ceramic tile for the kitchen floor. I am concerned that tile would be cold in the winter, and that we would crack things that we drop on it. If you have a kitchen floor that you love, what is it, and why do you love it?

[Anonymous]

If there is no doorway with a door:
Continuous wood flooring (new boards laced in and the whole level refinished or replaced) > tile > non-continuous or mismatched wood.

Black and white checks are my favorite tile for kitchens and suit the most houses imo, but you need to start the conversation with the architecture of your house and the style of the interior if it’s not the same.

[Anonymous]

I love (and have always had) hardwood in a kitchen, but if you aren't redoing the dining room floor I think you have to put tile in your kitchen. I would not do non-matching wood.

[Anonymous]

Want to add - if you’re making an open kitchen where you’re hoping the kitchen will feel like part of the main “living space,” I think it’s worth replacing all the floors to get continuous wood. If you’re instead making a really big kitchen with an informal attached space that is all “back of house,” I think tiling the whole space or just the kitchen could work well.

[Anonymous]

We just did kitchen and family room renovation with similar - open to a dining room layout. We have hardwood floors and chose cork flooring for kitchen and family room. It transitions very nicely in terms of colors, but is still different enough to mark a transition. I love cork, it is soft and beautiful, you can use damp mop on it, just no standing water.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I hadn’t thought about cork! Say more— I just read up on it and it sounds really appealing but apparently can stain easily— have you experienced this? I’m sure I’d spill red wine or olive oil on it in the first week.

There’s going to be no doorway, just a 3-4-foot wide spot (between cupboards and peninsula) that divides dining room from kitchen space. So, different but similar woods would probably look bad.

[Anonymous]

We removed our wall between kitchen and dining, added hardwoods to the kitchen, and the floor guy laced them in flawlessly, sanded down the DR area and stained and finished new and old —it looked like it had always been one floor. I don’t think oak is difficult to match (ours was from the 1940s). Nobody seemed to think this was difficult or unusual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I hadn’t thought about cork! Say more— I just read up on it and it sounds really appealing but apparently can stain easily— have you experienced this? I’m sure I’d spill red wine or olive oil on it in the first week.

There’s going to be no doorway, just a 3-4-foot wide spot (between cupboards and peninsula) that divides dining room from kitchen space. So, different but similar woods would probably look bad.

I’m sure there are lots of different kinds but we had cork in a house once and it oooked like crap after a few years. Always dirty.

[Anonymous]

Hardwood to match (can be matched by any decent floor guy). No tile in the kitchen if you actually cook (if your kitchen is just a show place, and you do take out/go out to eat all the time, by all means, go ahead). If you cook, you would know how bad a tile floor is for your back, and also how bad it is for anything you drop.

Ignore the haters who say you can't ever get anything wet on a hardwood floor - that is what polyurethane is for. 20+ years in a home with hardwood in the kitchen, 3 kids, 2 dogs, no problems with the hardwood, and believe me we have lots of messes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I hadn’t thought about cork! Say more— I just read up on it and it sounds really appealing but apparently can stain easily— have you experienced this? I’m sure I’d spill red wine or olive oil on it in the first week.

There’s going to be no doorway, just a 3-4-foot wide spot (between cupboards and peninsula) that divides dining room from kitchen space. So, different but similar woods would probably look bad.

NP here, and we went with cork in kitchen (which is open to dining room where we have original hardwood with exactly the size/type of opening you’ll have), and we LOVE it. I chose it specifically because I wanted something soft; I had tile in our last house house and HATED it. We managed to find a cork that pretty much exactly matches in color/tone the hardwood, so the transition works really well. We’ve had the cork for three years and are really happy. If it’s sealed properly during installation, you shouldn’t have any staining problems.

The one caution I will make, however, is that you should make sure your flooring installation people are very experienced with cork. Our GC’s floor guys weren’t, so there were problems during installation. It all worked out in the end, but it was really the only hiccup we had in our kitchen reno, and it was frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I hadn’t thought about cork! Say more— I just read up on it and it sounds really appealing but apparently can stain easily— have you experienced this? I’m sure I’d spill red wine or olive oil on it in the first week.

There’s going to be no doorway, just a 3-4-foot wide spot (between cupboards and peninsula) that divides dining room from kitchen space. So, different but similar woods would probably look bad.

NP here, and we went with cork in kitchen (which is open to dining room where we have original hardwood with exactly the size/type of opening you’ll have), and we LOVE it. I chose it specifically because I wanted something soft; I had tile in our last house house and HATED it. We managed to find a cork that pretty much exactly matches in color/tone the hardwood, so the transition works really well. We’ve had the cork for three years and are really happy. If it’s sealed properly during installation, you shouldn’t have any staining problems.

The one caution I will make, however, is that you should make sure your flooring installation people are very experienced with cork. Our GC’s floor guys weren’t, so there were problems during installation. It all worked out in the end, but it was really the only hiccup we had in our kitchen reno, and it was frustrating.

Does the cork flooring require annual sealant to be applied? I was told that about 5 years ago by a flooring guy. It might have been the type they were selling though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I hadn’t thought about cork! Say more— I just read up on it and it sounds really appealing but apparently can stain easily— have you experienced this? I’m sure I’d spill red wine or olive oil on it in the first week.

There’s going to be no doorway, just a 3-4-foot wide spot (between cupboards and peninsula) that divides dining room from kitchen space. So, different but similar woods would probably look bad.

NP here, and we went with cork in kitchen (which is open to dining room where we have original hardwood with exactly the size/type of opening you’ll have), and we LOVE it. I chose it specifically because I wanted something soft; I had tile in our last house house and HATED it. We managed to find a cork that pretty much exactly matches in color/tone the hardwood, so the transition works really well. We’ve had the cork for three years and are really happy. If it’s sealed properly during installation, you shouldn’t have any staining problems.

The one caution I will make, however, is that you should make sure your flooring installation people are very experienced with cork. Our GC’s floor guys weren’t, so there were problems during installation. It all worked out in the end, but it was really the only hiccup we had in our kitchen reno, and it was frustrating.

Does the cork flooring require annual sealant to be applied? I was told that about 5 years ago by a flooring guy. It might have been the type they were selling though.

Nope. Maybe every five years? Definitely not every year.

[Anonymous]

If your floor guy can’t handle lacing in new hardwood, that is a red flag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We removed our wall between kitchen and dining, added hardwoods to the kitchen, and the floor guy laced them in flawlessly, sanded down the DR area and stained and finished new and old —it looked like it had always been one floor. I don’t think oak is difficult to match (ours was from the 1940s). Nobody seemed to think this was difficult or unusual.

It can be done. We did this in our old Victorian house and it was a prefect match. We also had hardwood stairs replaced in our current old house that match the existing floors. The latter took some work for the installer to match the stain, but he did it.

If you want hardwood, I’d push the contractor to find someone who can do it.

[Anonymous]

Matching hardwood is flooring 101. Agree with above poster that it’s a red flag if guys are telling you they can’t do. There are some low skilled floor layers out there, and you may be talking to them. Different story if your dining “hardwood” is actually engineered. You can’t match that. If it’s just the two rooms, I would redo the floor I’m both in that case. Would probably only cost a few thousand more.