wood floor for kitchen?
We have always. had tile floors in our kitchens, but now I am questioning whether we should go with wood in our renovated house. The back is open plan, so continuing the (herringbone) oak floor would avoid having a seam between tile and wood. Plus I am not thrilled with the tile I have found (has to go with the granite counter). Our GC says that with modern vanishes, wood floors are more practical than they used to be. Does anyone have experience, good or bad, with wood floors in kitchens? Thanks!
Guest User | 1 year and 2 months ago
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anotherposter | 1 year and 1 month ago
Do heated tile. I found a tile that’s kind of neutral and light (dark garden level) for my kitchen that compliments the very busy counters and I don’t really notice the tile much, which is nice because there’s a lot going on with everything else (bit of a maximalist in design choices, so some parts need to just be neutral and provide appropriate amount of light).
brokelin | 1 year and 1 month ago
I much prefer the look of one flooring throughout the floor on open plan, and like wood floors the best.
I think a wood floor, with a runner or other rug or mat to protect the kitchen floor area, looks far better than a transition to tile or other flooring for the kitchen (which almost always is visually jarring in an open plan, and can be jarring to feet, though with enough expense you can do it well, but most don’t).
But you have to be willing to actually put something on the wood floor to protect it if you are hard on your floors – only you know your own habits in this regard.
angela7606 | 1 year and 1 month ago
I’ve done two renovations with wood in both kitchens. The first one, we used cheap floors and the water from sink eventually demanded the flooring finish. We replaced boards as needed. No big deal.
This time around in our BK townhouse, we did it again but bought higher quality engineeee floors. And I bought 200sf extra for the future in case I need to replace boards again I won’t have to hunt. The look is the best for open concept unless the kitchen is at the very back and the transition works well.
lucie | 1 year and 1 month ago
I have 2 different kinds of wood floors on the first floor kitchen and on the second floor kitchen.
2nd floor kitchen floors are oak finished on site with oil based poly 3 coats.
It was 2007 I think. It is pretty worn out. The worth is that living room and kitchen is uninterrapted floor, so, you will have to refinish both.
1 st floor kitchen is factory prefinished cherry wood wide planks.
Looks a bit artificial in reality. You could always tell, even with beveled edges and varied length.
We lived with it since 2014, now our tenants live there since 2020 and it looks a bit worn out in the kitchen. The same problem: living-kitchen floor is uninterrapted, so, if you refinish, you have to do both.
Living rooms floors look perfect in both apartments.
brokelin | 1 year and 1 month ago
The lines between floorboards on engineered wood flooring aren’t a necessity – prefinished boards usually come with those beveled edges, to protect the finish, and to accommodate slight variations in the subfloor (but apparently some refinished boards come without them.). But you can buy engineered wood with no bevel, what they call “square” cut, and if you buy it unfinished, and sand out any variations and finish it onsite after installation, it should be indistinguishable from solid wood boards. I’m sure some have used it in basements because it is supposed to be better than hardwood in those applications.
Guest User | 1 year and 2 months ago
I am wrapping up 2 awkwardly small unit renos that are nearly identical. One where I kept the existing tile transition for open kitchen area (while installing new tile), and the other where I went with pre-finished wood the whole way. Tenants will ruin both eventually. I prefer the look of the full wood floors. Labor was cheaper using only wood. Materials selection was streamlined using only wood
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 1 year and 2 months ago
Cate: The line between plank is virtually unnoticeable on my pre-finishing oak kitchen floor and I believe that the better engineered wood is similar.
brokelin | 1 year and 2 months ago
I much prefer hardwood, but I’m currently not living in brownstone Brooklyn, but in a inherited property that is a 1970s-built condo, on first floor level with the ground outside, on concrete slab – I read that engineered wood may be a better choice than hardwood on concrete slab, even with plywood or OSB underlayment – that’s the only instance in which I’d consider engineered over hardwood, on concrete and/or below grade- I read that it was created for such applications.
Some of the higher end engineered wood floors do look good, at least in blog photos posted by some who have installed them – those with a thicker wood layer on top (which allows for more refinishings) appear to be indistinguishable from hardwood, without those lines from bevel-edged planks – I haven’t checked them out in person yet, though those may cost as much as, or more than, nice hardwood.
I may just install cork throughout, maybe with a flat transitioning to marmoleum for the kitchen, if I ever get the $ to renovate, and to renovate as I would want to (not having to do it cheaply, though I dou bt anything but fairly cheaply would be a wise move where I am living in terms of the investment for resale, and I don’t intend to live here forever) – cork is likely cheaper than high end engineered wood, and softer underfoot.
Whatever my flooring, I will cover most of it with area rugs anyway, as I really like wool rugs, for the color, patterns, warmth, comfort underfoot and sound absorption – even when I’m not covering my floors for the sake my neighbors below me as I did when living in brownstones.
neilw | 1 year and 2 months ago
Wood floors on balance are what we prefer. With wood you might get a bounce or even better with a dropped glass, not so with tile. Also, standing on tile for a long period of time gets painful, and adding a thick rubber mat is then something to trip on. Also, tile will go out of style much more quickly.
cate | 1 year and 2 months ago
Re engineered wood floors, I would avoid them. Even the newer and high end engineered wood looks fake due to the line between the planks, sadly. I am doubtful radiant floor heating is a good idea with regular wood floors.
brokelin | 1 year and 2 months ago
It isn’t like tile floors don’t require maintenance. They chip. They can crack if you drop something. Sometimes they discolor (ask me how I know). None of these things are easily repairable. The grout can come loose, and always attracts dirt – scrubbing those dirty grout lines regularly is a pain. Cleaning wood floors is much easier.
How many tile kitchen (or vinyl) floors last over 100 years and still are looking good? Plenty of wood ones do. It is easier to refinish a wood floor, and a good woodworker can do it in spots without having to do the entire parlor floor than to replace a tile floor.
What I see Steve saying is he’d rather replace a tile floor than recoat a wood one (or bother to use a fabric or vinyl mat there are pretty ones out there that are thin and flat, if you like vinyl – to protect hard-used areas to prevent the wear in the first place) which really doesn’t make sense to me, and I find hard to believe. To each their own. And the leg pain, and sometimes back pain, from the tile floors is real, especially as you age.
Guest User | 1 year and 2 months ago
thanks! I am nearing a decision
cate | 1 year and 2 months ago
We have Marmoleum and love it but I agree in this situation wood floors would be great. As long as you use a washable cotton mat/rug in front of the sink it will be fine. We use one from Ikea on our Marmoleum floor. (The doors have a regular wood saddle but otherwise there is no appreciable height change. There’s a layer of quarter inch ply under the Marmoleum and over the wood subfloor.)
irinamikhail1 | 1 year and 2 months ago
We went with luxury vinyl flooring in our kitchen. There is still a seam, but aside from that you can barely notice the difference as what we purchased (Cali) looks very similar to our blonde oak floors. I love that I don’t have to worry about wiping up spills right away, especially with two small children.
stoopsitter | 1 year and 2 months ago
We’ve had a wood floor in our kitchen ever since we bought the house 15 years ago and renovated. And for the same reason you mention: to keep the parlor floor all one surface. No issues at all. We haven’t even refinished the varnish in that time.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 1 year and 2 months ago
We’ve had a wood floor in the kitchen since we bought our house nearly 50 years ago. Originally we just had the original pine sub-floor sanded and varnished. About 6 or 7 years ago we had a pre-finished oak floor installed and it’s held up very well.
Guest User | 1 year and 2 months ago
Thanks! I am tempted, although cold tiles shouldn’t be a problem for us, because we will have radiant floor heat.
I do have some leg pain, and I am in my 70s, so maybe that’s an issue, although I have never been aware of pain from standing on tiles.
I hadn’t thought in terms of mats or runners to help protect the floor.
brokelin | 1 year and 2 months ago
I’ve had wood floors in many of my kitchens – from 100+ year old original red old oak in a Brooklyn brownstone (that kitchen was was in a room not originally a kitchen in what was once a single family home), to 90+ year old heart of pine or yellow pine flooring that was the original kitchen floor, as in the rest of the rooms in that apartment building, to newer oak or pine floorboards other kitchens, from many decades old to brand new.
My wood kitchen floors were all fine, more than fine, really – I loved them all. I generally didn’t love my tile kitchen floors – I did have nice colorful imported patterned tile in one kitchen that looked pretty, but it was tough to stand on, and harder to clean.)
I came to prefer wood kitchen floors over tile. Tile is so cold underfoot in the winter. I started to put cotton rag rugs over the entire kitchen floors when I had tile, just so my feet weren’t so cold. (The rugs also added needed color – the single color tiles on the floor were boring to look at – wood is much prettier.) Sure, I’d put a small cotton rag throw rug by th e sink to catch my drips with a wood floor, but nothing was needed to warm the wood floors up in the rest of the kitchen.
I also needed rugs for cushioning over tile – once you get into your 40s, your feet and legs start to notice the hardness of standing and working on a tile kitchen floor – unless you are always wearing your running shoes, as I started to do sometimes in one kitchen, but I tend to be in socks or barefoot at home. They say your legs and back fatigue from standing on tile, too, and some feel those pains a lot more than I did. Wood is slightly springy, and so is forgiving – its the human choice. (The only time I put a 6′ x 9′ cotton rag rug over most of a wood kitchen floor was not to make it softer, but to soak up sound, as it echoed in that kitchen with so many windows on two walls, and adding the cotton rag rug took care of that problem – while also being washable in a large laundromat washing machine., not that it needed it often, it was easy to sweep crumbs from, and to spot clean any food drips from.)
When the wood was a bit softer, as with the heart of pine, I used a bamboo runner in that galley kitchen to protect the floor from dings from my dropping utensils and the like, as those gorgeous old floors (in another city) dented really easily – but I had no problem with the old brownstone red oak or newer floorboards being damaged in kitchens – either from my water spills (the polyurethane protected them from water just fine) or from my dropping things (the old oak or newer wood wasn’t that soft.)
When I contemplate a future renovation of my current condo, tile floors in the kitchen are not even a consideration. I’d also like the floors in to have no break between rooms, so will likely go with wood (more likely engineered wood in this condo.) I would not do any of those click-together floating floors of any kind – that seems to be asking for water to get in between the materials from spills. And I loathe vinyl or laminate.
The other materials I would consider for a kitchen, if I can get the transition between the kitchen floor and the wood floors in adjoining rooms to be flat, with no height variation to hurt my feet when I step on it wrong (I had that before in some places, never again, the pain is sharp), are: (1) Marmoleum – modern linoleum, a natural product and soft and warm underfoot, in a glued-down sheet format (I don’t want the seams from the glued-down square tiles, and I don’t trust click-together floors to stay in place or be leak-proof, though finding contractors who know how to seam the sheets together can be tough if you need more than 1 sheet in width); or (2) glued down cork flooring – a natural wood product, wonderfully soft underfoot, also warm, so in consideration for the flooring for the entire condo (excluding bathrooms), but there are some concerns with water in and cork, and I get water everywhere on the floor when working at the sink, so perhaps not, though it might work better for others who aren’t as messy – the jury is still out on that one – (I might put in the kitchen, but not the in the bathrooms – I am fine with tile in bathrooms.) But as I also really like the lack of transition in flooring (even though it isn’t open plan here, but I may take down some parts of some of the kitchen walls where I can to let more light into the windowless kitchen), it will likely be either wood or cork on the kitchen floor, whichever I decide for the flooring for the rest of the rooms in the place, with no transitions in the flooring.
In an open plan brownstone, wood is the only choice, in my opinion.
justinromeu26 | 1 year and 2 months ago
so you can do it. when i first installed ours i did it with a traditional finish that did not wear so well and five years ago i had my then 14 year old son get down on his hands and knees and sand it off and redo it with a better finish (that is why we have kids, right?). it has held up better with the modern product we put on the second time but is wearing by the dishwasher (one wear spot from shifting on one foot between the sink and dishwasher; if i had put a matt down it would not have happen). The kid is now in college and I am beginning to realize that i am getting too old to maintain this stuff myself. the lesson here: should have had one more kid.
i am going to keep ours but i now have to treat that one spot and then screen the entire floor and recoat. do it if you want to screen and recoat in six years. tile would be easier.