Amanda, for heaven's sake!! Linoleum is old as the hills. Sort of. :) Considering the style of your kitchen and adjoining rooms, none of which look "Colonial", this seems a really weird thing for those people to get stuck on. You have young children. You have a budget. Get bright orange Marmoleum (sort of a joke, but it would look great if you did it), and radiant floors. Then the children can spread out their painting projects on the floor, roller skate, or whatever.

Real linoleum, such as Marmoleum, is an ecologically friendly choice. Put your nose in the air and tell those who carp that you're being green. Sheet vinyl also has something to recommend it too. My mother used industrial grade (the kind they had in the supermarket) in the kitchen and den when we were little.

See, the great thing about putting in linoleum, besides the beautiful colors, etc., and child friendly surface, is that you can easily replace it when you decide you want hardwood. In fact, you can do the subfloor as if you're getting hardwood (so that it's right under the cabinetry and appliances) and cove the sheet goods so you cover the transition areas. Then it's easy to mop. And you can make the change when the kids are older and you feel like spending the money--or not.

And, most important of all, you'll be WARM!! When my HVAC guy shook his head and said no, when I wanted to retrofit the whole house with radiant heat, it was no biggie. We consider it nigh on tragic if the nights get down to 40 degrees. You NEED good heating. You don't need wood. Radiant makes sense. Go for it.

JC

I can understand both sides, and opinions are great but remember this is your house and you should get what fits your lifestyle and budget best.

That being said, if it were me, I would go with hardwood and no heat. Hardwood is better for resale, it would add value to your home, it can be refinished etc. Plus, it would fit the period and style of the house better.

I would look into other ways for warmth like socks/slippers, area rugs, space heater, they even make radiant heat mats to slip under area rugs instead of under the floor installation.

As a fellow freezing northeasterner, I say get the heat. Heat heat heat. I could use some now, as a matter of fact (why is it still March up here?!).

Marmoleum is gorgeous and very kid-friendly, and you can always put in hardwood in a few years when you can afford it. (Can't go the other way 'round and put heat under already-installed wood.)

Put it this way: would you rather have cold feet 6 months out of the year, or have a few random rude houseguests cast aspersions on your historicity? I'm with the feet.

You can get both beautiful hardwood floor and radiant heat if you want the best of both worlds by using engineered hardwood floors. Engineered floor has a quarter inch hardwood layer over a half inch engineered base. And in case you are thinking of those plasticky looking Pergo floors, these floors are completely different. They look like regular hardwood floors. The downside is that you can only refinish it once because of the thinner hardwood layer. The new multimillion dollar homes in my town are all doing this and it looks amazing.

Good luck.

I don't have a lot to add - I don't have a historical house, but I had a similar choice with my renovation. I was going to get the radiant heating because I didn't think there was an option for replacing our baseboard heat that would be covered up with cabinetry. Then I found that they make a special heater to go under the cabinet, so I didn't even broach the radiant heating. I'm curious, how much are they quoting for the radiant heat? I never felt cold in our current house, so I am ok with our choice. I'm sure I would have liked the savings I'd see with the radiant (I think there is a savings?).

Also, have you considered DIY wood? We did our family room (bought 432 sq') with prefinished for $2171. DH installed (borrowed a friend's tool to nail it in).

I can sympathize with your choice - I can see other's point that you can always install the wood later, but honestley, it's not as easy as it sounds. When we moved into our house 15 years ago, we did a kitchen "facelift". I put in vinyl because I didn't know what I wanted for my forever floor. Now that we are in the middle of this renovation, I can imagine the disruption of replacing the floor - it would have been a real nightmare. Do-able, yes, but not a piece of cake (with 3 kids) by any means.

Lynne

Hola,
Sorry, forgot to post layout:

And no, we're not thinking of using our huge fireplace as a heat source. My kids have asthma, so all the tiny particles from wood burning or pellet stoves are not good for the kids. And I don't think they're that environmentally friendly.
If we have the money, we would do geothermal heating.

Here's our house in about 20inches of snow last year (does this help your decision, since it's nice and warm today?):

plllog:
"You have young children. You have a budget...Then the children can spread out their painting projects on the floor, roller skate, or whatever.
Real linoleum, such as Marmoleum, is an ecologically friendly choice...you can easily replace it when you decide you want hardwood. In fact, you can do the subfloor as if you're getting hardwood...
Then it's easy to mop. And you can make the change when the kids are older and you feel like spending the money--or not."
These are my thoughts exactly!!!

roobear:
"Hardwood is better for resale, it would add value to your home, it can be refinished etc. Plus, it would fit the period and style of the house better."
EXACTLY! The flip-side of my thinking as well.
If I'm going to do hardwoods later, why not do them now and enjoy the benefit of the flooring, rather than pay twice?
I've also thought about the heated rugs; the Japanese use them all over their house.

circuspeanut: "have cold feet 6 months out of the year"
Argh: sometimes it feels longer.

cleo: "using engineered hardwood floors"
Great idea, but because we installed some in our previous house, I really did not like them. My main concern w/ them is wear and tear, especially in between the planks. What happens if water (or raw meat juice) gets in between and swells the ?particle boards, etc?

lovilynne: "have you considered DIY wood"
Oh, while my house is not historical, it seems like it with the uneven floor, no insulation in the walls, etc :)
We are DIY the hardwood floors for the 2nd floor right now. The learning curve was HUGE for us. And I'm not sure about my skills w/ hardwood floor over radiant heat.

"they make a special heater to go under the cabinet"
Oh!!! Can you please tell me more? Do you have pictures to share? Hmmm...

We are installing a couple of the toekick heaters in our foyer. They are designed to fit under regular cabinetry and are quite effective. I would not suggest using them to heat your whole house (it would not be cost efficient) but they are great for cold spots. You can get 120 or 240 volt versions.

The link to the manufacturer's site is below. They are in the "specialty heaters" section.

FWIW - I vote for a combination of hardwood with tile insets in the wet areas.

Good Luck :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Q Mark / Marley

Can't you have radiant heat floors with hardwood? We are installing radiant floor heat in our entire house - we took out all the baseboard heat (we live in COLD NY) and are planning on putting radiant underneath the floorboards. Is this an option you could consider? It works with a boiler system.

Just a thought! Good luck!

Ktrud, I think you can have rh with hw, the op was asking about budget tradeoffs.

Huango, nice layout! I thought about doing something similar with mine where you have the door into the dr., but ours would be out to our deck where there is a pool, and I just couldn't picture the kids running in and out of our DR with wet bathing suits, etc.

Also, your house in the winter looks a lot like mine did! I'm in Northern Massachusetts. I'm really bad, though, and keep the theromostat at 72 when we are home. But, we also have programmable on our 4 zones, so for most of the time it is down to 65.

I've attached a link to a share with two pictures - one is the area with the radiator in it (you can see it behind the chairs) - it was rather large (I'm not sure why it wasn't just baseboard), and the 2nd picture shows the new cabinets with the toe kick heater in it. I think it's pretty obscure. I can't speak to the heat yet, but to the right of that cabinet is the door to the deck - it was a slider, and it could be drafty near that window, but I'm hoping the single french door will be better.

Here is a link that might be useful: share to Lynne's picture of toe kick