Wood Flooring in the Kitchen

Paris167

New member
Anyone have problems with having wood flooring in the kitchen?

With the new great rooms it's always nice for flow to have a cohesive flooring throughout including the kitchen. My husband was concerned about putting wood in the kitchen vs tile - anyone have any thoughts about this? thx
 
I'm going all hard wood in great room/kitchen. Think it wouldn't look good if it went from wood then tile.

My contractor said it's even OK to do hardwood in bathrooms and laundry room. Most people just don't like coming out of the shower and getting water on the floor. But he said don't worry about if the tub, toilet, dishwasher etc floods and ruins the hardwood, home owner's insurance covers it.
 
SubSolar said:
My contractor said it's even OK to do hardwood in bathrooms and laundry room. Most people just don't like coming out of the shower and getting water on the floor. But he said don't worry about if the tub, toilet, dishwasher etc floods and ruins the hardwood, home owner's insurance covers it.

im not a contractor but this does not sound like good advice and yes, i did stay at a holiday inn express last night.
 
I think we need to get some opinions from people who have put hard wood in their kitchens and bathrooms.

I just washed dishes tonight, lots of water splashes/spots around my dishwasher (we used it as a drying rack), it's tile so I don't really have to worry about wiping it up.

If you drop a knife, pot, pan or a bottle or jar falls out of the fridge when you open it... do you worry more with tile or wood? What about ice (or if you use a water dispenser)?

Just too many things worry me in a kitchen... and a bathroom (esp with water) to make me not put wood in those areas.
 
Paris167 said:
Anyone have problems with having wood flooring in the kitchen?

With the new great rooms it's always nice for flow to have a cohesive flooring throughout including the kitchen. My husband was concerned about putting wood in the kitchen vs tile - anyone have any thoughts about this? thx

our last house was new construction in redondo beach and it had the great room concept. it had wood throughout the great room and kitchen.  it looked much better than wood/tile combo.  if you spill something just clean it up ASAP and you are fine.  just keep towels underneath the sink or in one of the cabinets for quick access in case of a spill.  the half bath for guest had wood as well. it was fine. but the regular bathrooms had tile. couldnt imagine having wood in the bathroom (well ive had wood in the bathroom plenty of times but you know what i mean :)
 
Lol qwerty you're hilarious  ;D

For me it's all about the design, for hubby all about function - go figure. So I would like to put hardwood throughput great room kitchen as long as it's not detrimental.

Anyone have hardwood in kitchen for 10 years and been ok?

Definitely not putting wood in bathrooms with showers - tile is best there IMO or now they have this awesome wood looking tile for bathrooms
 
I had hardwood in the kitchen of my last home - I loved the cohesive look (can't stand wood/tile split look), but man it was a pain.  I had a dishwasher leak that warped some of the wood, then water stains around the sink and fridge (even though I had a mat there) - also there were so many dropped dishes/knives/pots/pans that it was a dent fest in that kitchen... It looked good from far but after a few years it was far from good.

I have porcelain wood tile now throughout my downstairs, this thing is bulletproof - I've already dropped a lamp, pots, pans, glasses, etc on it and I can't notice a thing... No dents, no cracks, marks wash off with some goo gone and elbow grease. 

It doesn't look quite as nice as that dark wood floor throughout the downstairs but it's 10x easier to maintain.  I may do wood again but not until the kids grow up - for now I don't regret the plank tile throughout.
 
I have wood in the kitchen, and it looks great, and works great.  just a mat in front of the sink, and try to wipe up spills in a few minutes, and no problems/warping/etc.  it does get dirty and needs a good pine-sol cleaning regularly, and will probably get refinished on a five year schedule (I'm three years in).
 
aquabliss said:
I had hardwood in the kitchen of my last home - I loved the cohesive look (can't stand wood/tile split look), but man it was a pain.  I had a dishwasher leak that warped some of the wood, then water stains around the sink and fridge (even though I had a mat there) - also there were so many dropped dishes/knives/pots/pans that it was a dent fest in that kitchen... It looked good from far but after a few years it was far from good.
Yes. This is what scares me. I remember a few years back, one of the model homes was closed for a few days because they had to refinish the wood floors due to all the traffic it had... that would be what your floors would look like in 5-10 years.
I have porcelain wood tile now throughout my downstairs, this thing is bulletproof - I've already dropped a lamp, pots, pans, glasses, etc on it and I can't notice a thing... No dents, no cracks, marks wash off with some goo gone and elbow grease. 
One of our tiles has chipped but it's barely noticeable and you can actually remove and replace it (we had to do this once when we had travertine floors). I would get a distressed/tumbled stone tile so that even if there were chips/marks, it would not be noticeable.
 
If you like wood, go with wood.

I was concerned about water stains/damage. We, too, have a connected great room/kitchen area, but it would've looked very odd to have 2 different types of flooring. To deal with the sink/dishwasher area, we have a large rug in that area to catch any drips. There are occasional drips in other areas, and usually we wipe those up right away. In the event that we miss a small random drip, sometimes there's a mark on the floor once it dries that goes away with a damp cloth. We've been in the house for 1.5 years without any significant problems. All that said, we don't have any kids, which I understand may be a problem when they spill and don't clean up. Maybe someone with kids can comment on this.

photo_zps8a2efe37.jpg
 
Ahh yes... I hate grout. That is a big con for tiles.

Rectified tiles or natural stone with zero/minimal grout lines works best (or I've seen some people use a dark grout).

I don't mind a wood/tile transition but like WTT says, it's weird when it's a wide open space like you see in most new homes.

@NYT:

Nice wood selection, we are looking at the same type... which one is that?
 
Some years back, when I was looking at resale homes, I saw this house that was fairly new, with gorgeous upgrades everywhere including nice wood floors all around.  It was spotless everywhere except around the kitchen sink area where there was a big water stain mark on the wood.  So, I'm assuming you would have to be really careful with wood in the kitchen area and anywhere else it might get wet.  I personally would not want to be worrying about each time I (or more often, the kids) spill something on the floor.  I could live with the split look.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
@NYT:

Nice wood selection, we are looking at the same type... which one is that?

This is our flooring, which we did through the builder.

http://www.provenzafloors.com/Hardwood.aspx?id=1023&gallery=true&collection=Old%20World
 
I would recommend to float the wood floor and save some spare planks for unexpected accidents. I had a friend who's water line leaked up through concrete kitchen floor destroying the wood flooring. It was glue down and it cost more to tear up than to replace.

Regards.
 
@NYT:

Heh... exact same ones we were looking at, Provenza.

@nu2irvine:

I think for wood, they recommend glue down, floating floors are noisier (like laminate).
 
Paris167 said:
Anyone have problems with having wood flooring in the kitchen?

With the new great rooms it's always nice for flow to have a cohesive flooring throughout including the kitchen. My husband was concerned about putting wood in the kitchen vs tile - anyone have any thoughts about this? thx


I changed my kitchen tile to wood flooring. It makes my family room and kitchen looks much bigger. 

 

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That floor looks like moon shadow by Provenza. Venetian did the flooring for us. Eric and Andy had the right attitude and above all the right price. Thanks TI for your recommendation.
 
I know it would depend on a lot of factors but assuming using the type of wood shown similar to what luckyguy used (looks very nice by the way), what's a ballpark estimate for doing the whole bottom floor of about a two story 2500 sq. ft house?  Is it like $5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, 25K, 30K...more?  :'(
 
Based on my #monitoring (and math), seems like $15-$25k is the range depending  on what type of wood you pick and number of spaces downstairs (I would exclude bathrooms, downstairs bedroom and kitchen).
 
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