Kitchen flooring: What are the best options?
Wednesday, 23 February 2011 1:34 PM
Selecting the right flooring for your kitchen can be difficult, as hardwood, laminate, tile and vinyl flooring all offer advantages and disadvantages. But with our guide to the most practical and cost-effective options available, you should find it that bit easier to decide on the best option for your home.
Flooring is an essential element in any kitchen makeover. With countless combinations of materials and colours on the market, choosing a style is tricky in itself – but decking out the cook's stomping ground is about more than just design.
In most modern homes, the kitchen is one of the busiest areas, which brings in a number of factors that would simply not matter in other rooms of the house. In addition, your kitchen floor is likely to take more knocks, spills and require more upkeep than most.
Kitchen flooring options
Hardwood kitchen floor
Castillo Mystic Walnut Satin, £76.49/sq m, Quick-Step.com
Nowadays, hardwood is the most popular floor covering for the kitchen and it represents an all-round excellent choice for a number of reasons. The most common reservation people have is its relatively high price tag.
But hardwood kitchen flooring is easy to clean and maintain, requiring nothing more than a wipe with a damp cloth and the occasion once-over with a damp (as opposed to sopping wet) mop. In addition, it's about the only material that could potentially add value to the home, so in some ways it's an investment opportunity.
Having said that, any kind of wood flooring can present something of an interior design challenge when trying to match its exact shade with exposed grain on cabinets, worktops and doors etc. Plus, if you're unlucky enough to have a water-related kitchen disaster, your hardwood floor is likely to need replacing or repair.
Wood also has a tendency to dent and scratch over time, particularly when heavy or sharp objects are dropped from counter height. But, depending on your personal taste, you might say this adds character. Besides, decent hardwood flooring should be pretty tough.
Ceramic tile kitchen floor
Image: Thinkstock
Another timeless choice when it comes to kitchen flooring, ceramic tile can be mopped with bucket loads of water without any fear of its quality being compromised.
High-quality tiles should also be pretty much immune to scratching and will last for a good number of years – no matter how much foot traffic is thrown their way. In addition, should part of the floor somehow be damaged, replacing individual tiles is a relatively straightforward job.
However, keeping tile grout clean can be difficult – even more so if it's not properly sealed – and the cold, solid surface of a ceramic kitchen floor makes kneeling to clean pretty hard work on the knees and joints. But with an impressive array of patterns, effects and plain colours available, finding a ceramic tile design to suit your taste should be easy.
Laminate wood kitchen floor
Largo White Varnished Oak Planks, £28.49/sq m, Quick-Step.com
Much easier to install than its hardwood counterpart, laminate wood is often the choice of the DIY kitchen floor fitter. Laminate is also simple to clean and fairly resistant to water and damage, though it's unlikely to withstand a biblical dishwasher flood.
When it comes to selling your home, it's worth remembering that laminate flooring tends to divide opinion, with many favouring the more expensive appearance of genuine hardwood. But laminate is a sturdy and cost-effective alternative that's ideal for a basic family kitchen.
Vinyl kitchen floor
Estoril 493 from the Touch of Tiles Ceramics Collection, £23.99/sq m, AvenueFloors.co.uk
Last but certainly not least, sheet vinyl flooring has been a kitchen flooring favourite for several decades. Although its popularity started waning slightly in the late 1990s, the product has evolved somewhat in recent years.
Among its many superior qualities, vinyl is arguably the easiest type of flooring to keep free from kitchen mess, with nothing more than a mop and bucket required for everyday maintenance. It can also be installed without seams, making for a beautifully watertight floor.
Kitchen vinyl represents a durable choice that's not easy to damage, though its gentle resilience offers softness under foot, preventing sore knees and joints when it comes to cleaning by hand. However, it's important not to forget about underlay, which provides the cushioning effect, and this can sometimes cause height issues – so gaps under cabinets and doors need to be considered before purchasing vinyl.
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