I still put carpets on most of my floors including the kitchen. It does get dirty, so I bought a dark one in the same tones as the living room since it is an open floor plan. I would not like walking around on hard floors, they are slick and cold and I am not trendy. LOL

I am looking at cork planks. It seems softer and more cushy. But I really have nothing other than small samples to judge it. I do not want tile or laminate. I want something with some "give or cushion". I am in my kitchen a lot. I don't go bare foot though..slippers or Croc flip flops depending on the time of year. :)

We use heavy rubber padding that came from a Pre-K school. It is about 2" thick. It is far better than the linolium floor. It is sectional so it can go outside and get pressured washed when it gets dirty.

I have heated stone floors in the kitchen and cork flooring in the basement. Love both. The cork is super warm and comfy underfoot but can be pricy. I love that stone is so durable and easy to clean and I don't have a problem standing on it (particularly when it's heated!) but I know others find it hard on their joints.

Try posting in flooring. I have heard positive comments about the Luxury Vinyl plank, they look like wood.

We put bamboo floors in the kitchen, dining, and living rooms just about 3 years ago. It stands up to all the stuff you can do to a kitchen floor and still looks like the day we installed it. I regularly sprinkle it with water drips and bits of vegetable. Last week it got a good deal of turkey juice on it. No problem, all is well. We are a family that is often barefoot in the house, although this time of year I favor socks.

We put in Cortec LVP. It has a cork layer under the vinyl. It's totally waterproof and it's comfy. I get a ton of complements on my floor, and no one can believe it's vinyl.

We have glue down cork tile. Soft, warm and super durable. One caveat - there was almost no wear at all until about a year ago (we installed about 10 years ago). Our aging cat decided it was the best place to hone her nails and now we need to redo the finish.

Our kitchen has the most-used house entry and comes in off a gravel drive, so there is a lot of potential wear and tear. We went for large ceramic tiles with under floor radiant heat (hot water.) Toasty warm and looks like new at 16 years. Previous house also had tile and forced air registers in the toe kick areas which kept the floor quite comfortable. That kitchen had a relatively small footprint and had at least some cabinet space on all four sides since the entry was in a corner, so the heat distributed well across the floor.

We were going to do porcelain tile with radiant heat. Instead we did hardwood with no heat. Our hardwood has been very durable. What is the issue with the current floor?

Same as Debrak (current home - 3/4" oak floor throughout)) and Suzanne (previous home - bamboo in family room and kitchen ). For coziness and warmth, other than radiant floor heating, there is nothing like wood/bamboo.

Marmoleum is nice. I think tile and in-floor heat would be the most warm and durable, but real linoleum feels really nice.

About ten years ago when we remodeled our c. 1976 kitchen, we researched all options and chose Amtico vinyl planks, the top of the line at the time. It looks like real wood, it still has a soft shine (when clean that is), its flexible so it moves as the house shifts, it went right over the concrete slab with not prep besides the glue. The vinyl planks and glue have held up to all sorts of things, from doggie toenails to broken glass, fridge leaks, dropped x-acto knives, spilled food, etc. I will say that it has scratched where the chair/bar stool legs have been moving for ten years, but its not at all obvious. I clean with a steam mop and it looks brand new. This link shows Priory Oak, and this is exactly what we have, the color and quality of the wood prints are amazing. I'd install it again in a heartbeat.

Here is a link that might be useful: Amtico Priory Oak

I love tile but not in bare feet. Warm floors would be ideal. Linoleum is a comfy material. I would only do a sheet product. It does scratch and wear though. Wood is not practical in a kitchen, imo, especially if you are feeding pets in the kitchen.

Another vote for cork in the kitchen, we've only had it for 18 months or so but honestly feel it's one of the best choices for kitchen flooring. Don't need to heat it (we have radiant heated floors in the master bath under tile), it's noticeably more comfortable under foot than wood or tile, it's water proof and very durable in my opinion. We've got a darker color and have had only 1 issue where a friends very large dog tussled w/our small dog in front of the fridge and scratched the finish a bit. I used a touch-up marker and you can't even tell.

i have wilsonart laminate red oak look laminate in my kitchen that is 15 years old. when i redid my cabinets/counters i contemplated tile/wood/vinyl but couldn't come to any decision and just left the wilsonart. i have decided to do nothing and keep it as it is in nearly perfect shape, has resisted water, dogs, kids, pots/pans being dropped on it, etc. we have a pool in the back that we must access through the kitchen slider and it can get a tad slippery when someone drips all over the floor but that would happen with pretty much any surface.
i know they don't make wilsonart anymore but what about a pergo? my floor only had a 10 year warranty and lots of laminates have 25 year warranties now ( my theory is a product will probably last for the warranty)

Right now for our kitchen/living room we are leaning toward strand-woven bamboo. It's quite durable, should be at least semi-moisture resistant, and not quite as hard/cold as stone.

markhpc, bamboo is not only "not quite as hard/cold as stone", but far from it - it's cozy and comfortable with bare feet. We had it in the kitchen/family room and loved it.

I have cork in my current kitchen. I bought the cheapest stuff I could find, and the stained surface scratches off. But, due to the texture, I can touch it up and it's not noticeable. I would recommend either going with a better brand, or getting it in a natural colour. But otherwise, I love it.

I had tile before, and even if it was heated, I would never get tile again, for the same reasons as dedtired. My feet would get so sore after a few hours in there. I spent a good 8 hours on my feet in the kitchen last week, and my feet were fine on the cork.

My next house I am planning to use Marmoleum, because the cork isn't the right look for that house. And I want a colour that goes right through rather than a stain on top.

Having lived with heated tile floors for 20 years, I would never do anything else. The only downside is the obstacle course presented by the cats lying on their backs in utter bliss!

live_wire_oak, I'm leaning in the direction of heated tile as the only flooring impervious enough to not lead to heartbreak with my family of 5 cats and one SO.

I'm worried about the commonly cited issues of dropped items breaking and discomfort standing.

Do those downsides bother you?

We have radiant flooring under the kitchen's hardwood floor and familyroom porcelain tile floor.
My toes are nice and toasty right now.

About 3hours ago, I dropped a plate in the kitchen: no breakage.

Ahhhh: warm toes!!!

Amanda

Well sure, some things break when you have hard floors. That's unavoidable. Like the whole bottle of expensive olive oil that shattered. That was memorable for the length, breadth, and width of the droplet scatter. Not the glass though. That was rather localized. But that isn't a common occurrence. Not everything you drop breaks. And I'm a klutz.

As far as it being hard to stand on, sure it's hard. But I don't cook barefoot. Too dangerous. I drop knives as much as anything else. So, I wear comfy shoes. Crocs in the summer and usually athletics in the winter. Cushy shoes were invented for a reason! No problems there either. My other half has a degenerative neurological disease that made durable flat fooring an imperative. No regrets on my part.

Decade old Ohio living room cork floor. Great if you keep the dogs and sunlight off of it.

I have Armstrong LVT. I don't walk barefoot, but I think it's warmer than a regular tile floor. I've only had it a few months, but it is easy to clean & I love it. The dog finds it slippery though. The previous sheet vinyl had more "grab" for her nails.

For those with radiant heat floors do you electric mat? Our only option will be electric mat and I'm not sure if the cost, both install and utilities will justify the comfort.

We have radiant electric mats under 2 bathroom floors and under the granite island. With all that perhaps our electric bill has gone up $10 per month in the winter. It actually saves us money because before the heated bathroom floors everyone would turn up the furnace before taking a shower (showers at all times of day) so I'm sure the gas bill has gone done a little. DH DIY'd all the installs.

For those with electric radiant heat floors in kitchen and/or bath: how do you switch it? Programmable timer? Motions sensor? SImple on/off? What is the recommended way?

We have electric radiant tile floor in our kitchen. It has a thermostatic sensor embedded in the mortar beneath the tile, and on the wall there is a digital, programmable set-back thermostat. One recommendation I read shortly after my install was complete, was to install two sensors so that if one fails you can easily switch over to using the other.

For a while we were really happy with our system, but lately it seems to be not working. It might have a bad thermostat, or a loose wire, or a bad sensor or a broken wire, but I haven't been able to convince the installer to try to fix it.

Please just don't make the mistake I made; as I mentioned in another thread somewhere, I have black marble floor in the kitchen in our present home, So hard to keep it looking new and worst flooring for our kitchen. Our new house will have traventine floors throughout with radiant heating (except formal living & dining rooms). I'd love to install granite floors but doubt if it comes in very light colors and quantiy we need.

I have strandwoven hardwood floors in our current basement, I installed/glued directly on concrete floor, feels so warm and I love it, however baby it too much and wife will have nothing to do with such flooring in the kitchen.

As Bob has we have programmable thermostats which can be turned on and off and you can override the programmed temp temporary. It 's just like a programmable thermostat for your furnace. We did install 2 sensors as a back up.

Bob, have you found out the problem and fixed your floor heaters yet? Wondering what the problem turned out to be, and if it is cost prohibitive to repair these things. Thanks! :)

I'm not sure what Bob has done to fix his problem, but I did run into a sensor problem with my kitchen sensor this past winter.

It was a ?sensor? that failed so it didn't tell the ?transistor? to kick on the heat to the kitchen area.

The familyroom sensor was working fine.

Good thing we kept the supplemental hot-water-baseboard heater in the kitchen that carried us through for a few days/weeks until we finally called the HVAC who installed it. We thought that's how it was supposed to run, but once they replaced the sensor wire, it's been working as designed.

Note: we have hot water radiant heating.

Amanda