Wood is very conceivable. Our 1918 house has oak flooring throughout; however, the kitchen has maple which we've had refinished to look the same age as the rest of the house.

Oftentimes, a slightly lesser grade of wood was used in the "private" areas of homes....areas where guests wouldn't go...and back in the early 1900's, guests didn't go into the kitchens.

Can you look at it from below?

FWIW, our 1928 house we've been renovating (Wash DC) had oak floors. The subfloor was not plywood, it was pine or something but in planks that looked like hardwood at first glance. That was typical of the time, I'm told. Unless the kitchen floor is higher than the rest of the house, I would guess that the previous owner put down plywood on top of the old subfloor to even things out and make it more suitable for carpet (as if carpet is ever suitable for a kitchen ...)

I know, carpet in the kitchen, yuck! My father seems to think there is a lesser quality wood plank under there that might not be suitable for flooring. I guess when we finally rip out the old floor we will see. Fingers crossed!

Our house is from the same era and we did find hardwood floors underneath layers of tile and linoleum (?) when we demo'd - unfortunately, they were in such bad shape from the glue that was used to attach the linoleum (or whatever it was) that we didn't even try to refinish them.

We had a Colonial built in 1928 in the Midwest that had oak flooring in the kitchen, so I think it is entirely conceivable. The oak in the kitchen was a bit more "dunged" up than the oak in the rest of the house (it may have been a lesser grade), but we sanded and refinished it when we did the rest of the house and it looked great once complete. Good luck! Jaymie

We also had oak under plywood in our kitchen. We were told by our GC at the time that it had too many holes (from nailing down the plywood) and we shouldn't refinish it but we did anyway and it looked pretty good. I especially liked the fact it matched the rest of the first floor, flowing into the dining room with no transition. It has a yellow pine subfloor under it.

The man who owned the house before us did so many stupid things that I wouldn't be surprised if they are in terrible shape. He probably also glued down vinyl. We had a panelled foyer and we decided to finally rip it down and sheetrock and wouldn't you know it, there was perfectly good sheetrock that we just had to prime and paint. Go figure!

I wouldn't sneeze at the lesser wood floor either if you find one. We are looking to purcase a home in Duluth and while the majority of the floors are oak or mahogany, the kitchen is a very rustic pine. (It was a true servant home and no one important went in there). It's actually quite pretty, despite the fact that it's not a quality floor (loose joints, gaps, knots, etc)

Yes, the breakfast nook in our kitchen had oak flooring under two layers of vinyl/linoleum.

This is what it looked like when we found it:

And this is how it looked after it was refinished:

I'm in the process of removing linoleum right now. I pull up a section, scrape up the roofing tar that held it down, and then sand. The small part I've completed looks great. It matches the original heart pine floors in the rest of my 1929 bungalow. It's hard work, but it's also the greenest alternative, and it's going to look great.

We're at the framing stage now. At demo, the guys pulled up 2 layers of linoleum in our 1930 Spanish to reveal tongue-and-groove wood floors. The GC says they are fir--not quite hardwood, but a perfectly serviceable softwood. IF the floor lady can sand through all of the adhesive, he thinks they will look beautiful, if a bit rustic. (There are some loose joints.) If we can't salvage the fir, then they'll have to lay plywood and put new wood on top of that. The floor will have to come up at least an inch unless we rip everything out and start over. Hope not. The rest of the house has red oak with dark walnut accents.