help me pick out flooring for my kitchen

[Anonymous]

after a few years with floating hardwood you can have a situation where the seams start to splinter and cause splinter if you are walking on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look online at Lowe's or Home Depot to get a better idea of the costs of each type.

Tile--most people like it pretty well, and it is not expensive, particularly in a small area. Costs vary widely by type of tile. It doesn't have to be expensive to look nice. Tile is easy to clean and doesn't get water-damaged. If you are going to be on your feet a lot in a kitchen, get a gel mat to stand on.

Slate--more expensive, can flake over time.

Linoleum and vinyl--I don't like these. Vinyl just looks cheap and ugly to me.

Hardwood--I agree that it would be hard to match your other floors, and it would probably look a little off. Hardwood is not as tough as tile.

Laminate/engineered wood--most of this stuff can't take the abuse of being in a kitchen. The previous owners put this in our kitchen shortly before we bought, and it's all dinged up. The layers can come apart if it gets too wet.

Vinyl and real linoleum are two totally different animals. I have vinyl, and it does look cheap. Linoleum, on the other hand, is a workhorse, incredibly versatile and beautiful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cork

Im not on the cork bandwagon. Thought I'd like I until I saw it in someone's kitchen. I thought it was plywood and that they were doing a kitchen remodel. Then I realized it was cork.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Tile--most people like it pretty well, and it is not expensive, particularly in a small area. Costs vary widely by type of tile. It doesn't have to be expensive to look nice. Tile is easy to clean and doesn't get water-damaged. If you are going to be on your feet a lot in a kitchen, get a gel mat to stand on.

Really? I think tile is polarizing -- it has its loyalists and its detractors, but if you're thinking of selling, realize that a buyer who doesn't like tile (or slate or anything with mortar) is going to think twice, because getting rid of it is such a pain.

[Anonymous]

I would look at Marmoleum if you dont want to do hardwood, although I wouldnt rule out hardwood - we put it in and it wasn't hard to match to the existing floors and looked better in out small kitchen then a sudden transition of flooring. But if we hadn't done wood i would have done marmoleum.