anyone regret (or love) hardwood floors in the kitchen?

[Anonymous]

We are just starting to think about a kitchen remodel on a house we bought recently and I have some flooring questions.

We have a traditional colonial and our eat-in kitchen has an open doorway into our formal dining room. The old owners did a basic update and put wall to wall carpet in the dining room and ceramic tile in the kitchen and the powder room right off the kitchen. The entry-way foyer has hardwood that also opens into the kitchen and dining room.

I think it would look best to have one type of flooring throughout and I hate the carpet in the dining room. I think that hard wood throughout makes the most sense but I'm hesitant to put hardwood in our kitchen and powder room. I cook every day so the kitchen is certainly not just for show, and our kitchen is a high traffic area because it is a direct entry from our garage. I'm not one of those people who will freak out if the floors get some nicks or dents, but I don't want to see major damage and am worried that hardwood is going to be hard to maintain.

I should probably add that I have two little boys - definitely adds to the maintenance factor!

What do you think, DCUM?

[Anonymous]

We have hardwoods and I love them. I am the kind that freaks out with nicks or dents, but so far, so good. We put oak down which is pretty strong. I also have an indoor/outdoor runner in my kitchen which helps a little. I had tile in my previous house and it was so cold. We put tile down in our powder room. I think wood would have been okay, but I'm weird about wood in bathrooms (esp if you have little boys who might not aim so well).

[Anonymous]

We have wood in our kitchen and love it; no issues. Builder put it in powder room too though and there was a very slight toilet leak (seal not 100% - not obvious running water) and the floor is discolored there. But kitchen is great!

[Anonymous]

We have hardwood in the kitchen, oak like a PP, and other than some very tiny nicks and dents, no issues, even with a preschooler and a toddler. Our kitchen flows into the dining room and living room so it made sense to do them all the same. We have tile in the powder room on the same floor. Personally I wouldn't do hardwood in a bathroom.

[Anonymous]

We have it in our kitchen, too. We also have two boys, though mine are 12 and 8 but we moved here 8.5 years ago. I don't think there is much maintenance at all.

[Anonymous]

We have a small house and I love them. I love the warm/deep wood tone against the off-white cabinet color. I have two, young, messy kids. The floors seem fine.

Do you have wood cabinetry?

[Anonymous]

I'm a pp and I think there is much less maintenance with a hardwood floor than I had with tile. I was always scrubbing my tile grout and hated how I had to bleach the grout every season and scrub it with a toothbrush.... awful. My hardwoods just get mopped lightly and they're perfect.

[Anonymous]

I was wary. Because we rented a place for a year with wood floors in the kitchen.

We bought our home with wood floors anyway, because everything else is perfectly to our liking.

I still just don't like having them in the kitchen. It has saved a few bowls from breaking. But ... I love the feeling of getting the floors really wet (and dry of course) and having a scrubbed-up-super-clean floor. You just don't get that with wood. Very clean is possible. But not that just-mopped tile feeling.

[Anonymous]

I've had tile and hardwood and have never seen a practical difference between the two. That said, I *loathe* the look of a semi-open concept kitchen that has different tile than the hardwood elsewhere. It's aesthetically jarring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was wary. Because we rented a place for a year with wood floors in the kitchen.

We bought our home with wood floors anyway, because everything else is perfectly to our liking.

I still just don't like having them in the kitchen. It has saved a few bowls from breaking. But ... I love the feeling of getting the floors really wet (and dry of course) and having a scrubbed-up-super-clean floor. You just don't get that with wood. Very clean is possible. But not that just-mopped tile feeling.

Me again. I do agree it takes less time. That is a positive. But sometimes I miss that feeling of putting a good amount of elbow grease in, and feeling a really really amazingly clean floor. Again, you don't have to do it with wood. But you don't get the slick reward. Ha ha.

I should also say that I have two young kids, a dog and a cat. We use and abuse our home. If we had a cleaner group, it wouldn't be so bad having wood in the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

NP here, but I'm intrigued. We get so many spills in the kitchen - water, drinks, tomato sauce, even the dog's water bowl gets tipped. There is no guarantee it will be mopped up quickly. Would this be a problem with wood floors? Is there a kind of wood (real or engineered) that will tolerate this treatment and clean up okay in the end? I've heard horror stories about the ice maker or dishwasher overflowing and destroying the floor. We also have the laundry area right off the kitchen. I supposed that could be tiled if necessary but the transition might be awkward. Right now, we have a sheet vinyl floor which isn't the prettiest (not ugly either) but at least it's waterproof.

[Anonymous]

Our whole first floor is wood including the kitchen and powder room. I like it but the kitchen floor will need to be refinished at some point because it's worn in certain heavy use spots in the kitchen (and I am not a fan of rugs in the kitchen). I think it's partly because they didn't do a great job of sealing it when we renovated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here, but I'm intrigued. We get so many spills in the kitchen - water, drinks, tomato sauce, even the dog's water bowl gets tipped. There is no guarantee it will be mopped up quickly. Would this be a problem with wood floors? Is there a kind of wood (real or engineered) that will tolerate this treatment and clean up okay in the end? I've heard horror stories about the ice maker or dishwasher overflowing and destroying the floor. We also have the laundry area right off the kitchen. I supposed that could be tiled if necessary but the transition might be awkward. Right now, we have a sheet vinyl floor which isn't the prettiest (not ugly either) but at least it's waterproof.

You're going to have to be neater. A dog's bowl cannot get tipped over and you don't use a towel to get the water up. That would probably warp the floors. Wood is not waterproof if you let water just sit on it. When we bought our house, their old wood floors were warped under where they kept the dog's bowls (but those floors were 20 years old and still looked nice in the kitchen).

[Anonymous]

Our house is open plan with hardwood everywhere, including the powder room. I cook a ton and our kitchen is a main traffic area, but I haven't had any problems with wear on the hardwood. However, a bunch of boards got wet and warped when an appliance leaked. There is no easy way to fix this because we'd have to refinish the entire first floor which would be a PITA, so I put a rug over them. I prefer closed-off kitchens so given a choice I would have that with different flooring, but in an open plan I'd choose wood again.

[Anonymous]

Slick-floor-lover poster here, and yeah, we have to keep the pets' water bowls in our master bathroom. Only the two bathrooms have tile, and the kids is too small.

If you have very clean pets, you could do it, and put some protection underneath the bowls.

Our retriever just slops his water around and leaves drips around the entire vicinity of the bowl.