We have hardwood in the kitchen and I love it. no issues with maintenance. And like somebody said having tile in a semi-open kitchen is jarring.

We have wood floors in a lighter color on the entire first floor, including the kitchen, the mud room and utility room. We have 5 kids as well as dad and a bunch or dogs. We don't do anything special for the wood floors in the kitchen; when we spill, we clean it up like we would on any other type of surface. We use Murphy's Oil Soap when we clean the floors. The dogs' water and food bowls are on painted decorative mats in the kitchen and, sure, they slop a little but again it is just like any other type of floor. Anyway, I love wood floors and would not have any other type of flooring in my kitchen or utility room. Thinking about it, we do have small rugs on the floor in the mud room to catch some of that turf debris from the kids sneakers and cleats. That turf stuff gets everywhere and the rugs help contain it a little bit.

I think it comes down to personal preference. My sister and our folks also have wood floors throughout their homes but my SIL has wood floor up to the entrance to the kitchen and then she has tile. My SIL's mom has the same setup as her daughter.

Whatever works for you, OP, whatever works for you!

We have oak floors in our kitchen (entire first floor of our 1948 colonial) and love them. We have to be careful to wipe up any drips or splatters near the dishwasher but it's been several years since we renovated and added the wood to the kitchen and it's worked out great.

We have them in our current rental. I'm not a big fan. The area in front of the dishwasher is damaged from previous leaks. It wouldn't be my first choice.

Anonymous wrote:Had it in our last house and hated it. If you use the kitchen a lot and it is a hub of your home, there will definitely be more wear and tear on the kitchen floor. Also, depending on your boys (and your pets), spills and splashes are inevitable. We had a small leak from our undersink water filter, and that also damaged part of the kitchen floor. In our new house, we have Marmoleum (natural linoleum) sheet flooring in our kitchen and it is a million times better than the hardwood floors of our old kitchen. It wasn't cheap, but it is super sanitary and warm underfoot.

A kitchen designer told me to definitely try Marmoleum. Couldn't afford it. Maybe one day!

Anonymous wrote: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.

PP How long have you had the floors?

We have them, they take friendly fire once in while. We've had them for 9 years and the only damage is about 20 small dimples, all about the size of a pin head on the floor directly beneath the silverware drawer- the damage is from the 20 times a steak knife has been dropped point facing down. Otherwise the floors have been fine through leaking dishwashers to fridge water line punctures.
I love them and I'd do it all again.

Had it in our last house and hated it. If you use the kitchen a lot and it is a hub of your home, there will definitely be more wear and tear on the kitchen floor. Also, depending on your boys (and your pets), spills and splashes are inevitable. We had a small leak from our undersink water filter, and that also damaged part of the kitchen floor. In our new house, we have Marmoleum (natural linoleum) sheet flooring in our kitchen and it is a million times better than the hardwood floors of our old kitchen. It wasn't cheap, but it is super sanitary and warm underfoot.

Hate it. High use area. Lots of spills and drips. Floors wet 10 times a day. And wood shoes wear spots. (I don't use a mat by sink or at counter where i prep. Mat would help.)

Here is my experience over 15 years with all hardwood in the entryway, kitchen, powder room, and garage entrance with 4 kids and a big dog.

They are awesome. You need to get waterhog mats for the entryways. The floors really start to show wear and tear after about 10 years. You should do some big maintenance probably every 6 years or so. We had them resanded after 10 years and they looked brand new again. The resanding process was way easier and less messy and dusty than I expected although it cost about 3k. Our floors got really dinged up, I never baby them. After the resand they looked perfect again. We did have a little toilet leak in the bathroom so there is a some discoloration around the toilet. The kitchen, never had problems with water on the floor. I wipe it up pretty quick but still am a pretty messy person in the kitchen. We clean them with just mild detergent and a mop. We don't soak them but just mop them. There is a lacquer on the floors but its not that thick. Hands down the only flooring I want to have in this busy room.

We just put tile in our kitchen in order to break up the hardwoods which are EVERYWHERE else. We have a dog and two young kids so needed something waterproof. Haven't used the kitchen yet (reno should be done next week), so we will see if it stands up to the wear and tear. I keenly remember having to scrub the grout lines in my house growing up. For that reason, we went with a more neutral color grout (while growing up, grout was supposed to be white) and a 1/16 separation between tiles.

I hate it. We have just bought a house which has hardwood floors throughout. All look great except in the kitchen where it looks terrible. The previous owners put mats down in parts of the kitchen which also looked awful. If you really use your kitchen, and it sounds like you do, it's just not very practical. We are ripping it out in the kitchen and replacing with lovely tiles together with underfloor heating

Love the look of hw floors in the kitchen, but don't love the wear. It has the highest traffic in our house, so it wouldn't be practical. Agree with those that say no hw in a full bath, but lovely in a powder room.

^chrcking this out later. Thank you
-pp

Anonymous wrote: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.

We use a special water bowl so my dog can't stick his face in it. https://www.amazon.com/Pow-Products-Road-Refresher-Bowl/dp/B001GULX04 That one was life changing. We have a long haired dog who loved to slop it every where.