Wood Floors vs Tile in Kitchen

[Anonymous]

Redoing our late 70s kitchen which currently has linoleum flooring (lovely!) - rest of main floor is oak hardwoods, recently refinished and in very good shape. When we redo kitchen, debating whether to do tile or continue the hardwoods in the kitchen. Thinking we will do traditional white cabinets and honed grey granite counters, so thinking the wood in kitchen would add warmth and nice contrast. Just wondering about the durability of wood floors in kitchen. We have two school aged kids and no pets.

Those who have wood floors in kitchen, what say you?

[Anonymous]

i like wood best personally, especially with a "traditional" kitchen.

i'm thinking of something similar in my kitchen, deciding between gray granite and marble looking silestone.

[Anonymous]

Tile is really hard on your back if you stand on it for long periods of time, like cooking holiday dinners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tile is really hard on your back if you stand on it for long periods of time, like cooking holiday dinners.

I agree. However, I love my tile kitchen and hallway (18" ceramic marbled tiles). We purchased these wonderful mats at BBB that are memory foam and have one in front of the sink and one in front of the stovetop. Not a problem anymore as those are the two areas we stand the most in (the primary workspace is next to the sink, so we can slide that mat over a few inches if we need to stand for a long period at the workspace.

But, especially with two toddlers who are experimenting with the throwing food on the floor, the file is much easier to clean than hardwoods and I'm not as worried about frequent food, water, etc on the tile as I would be on wood.

[Anonymous]

We have hardwood throughout and I love it. Easy maintenance and no grout to get stained. It's also a bit warmer.

[Anonymous]

Are you a dropper or a dripper? I'm a dripper (things splash on the floor) so I'm always freaking out about water on the floor as this house has wood floors in the kitchen. My last kitchen was large porcelain tiles that looked like slate. I used a matching dark grout so nothing really to stain.

If you drop a lot of stuff, you may want wood, as things may not shatter on wood that will shatter on porcelain.

I'm not ripping out perfectly good wood floors, but if I were designing a kitchen, I'd use tile.

[Anonymous]

Wood, no question about it.

[Anonymous]

I like my vinyl sheet flooring in the kitchen
Kyoto by Armstrong

[Anonymous]

Well would it match the wood floors on the rest of the level? I just know that can be hard to do.

[Anonymous]

I slightly prefer the look of wood but an going with tile because I fear that they won't match our 1930s hardwoods and because we cook a lot and our floors get trashed in a daily basis.

[Anonymous]

I like the pp who used the dropper v. dripper distinction. I think it's also important to think about how you use the kitchen. If you are really heavily using the kitchen you should probably go with tile because of the moisture issue. My parents are big cooks and their wood floors are a mess, although if they drop a plate it doesn't usually break.

[Anonymous]

Love the wood floors in my kitchen. Home was built new in 2006 and the wood floors are the same on the whole first floor. We are big cooks and the floors look fine. We don't go crazy, but we don't leave water pooled on the floor for any length of time. However, they are a little scratched where we have not done a good job of keeping the non-scratch pads on the bottom of the stools near the island.

[Anonymous]

I would never do wood floors again in a kitchen. They look awful but flow to the other main floor rooms, so a full out sanding and restoration would require us to move to a hotel, move the grand piano, an office. It's just too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like my vinyl sheet flooring in the kitchen
Kyoto by Armstrong

Yeah, I realize this makes me horrifyingly untrendy, but I too prefer a synthetic surface for my kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Tile. We have natural slate, it is beautiful, not slippery if wet and has held up to multiple kids, dogs, and a wood cookstove.