Do you have laminate or LVT in the kitchen? Love it or hate it?

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

Hi All,

I am angsting about flooring for my kitchen reno. This is a small ranch and we will be opening the wall between the LR and KIT. It will be a rental home for 10-ish years until we retire at which point we may decide to live in it. We are marketing it to young professionals and the rental market is very tight.

My contractor says good quality laminate will wear well and work nicely throughout the house (not in bathrooms). I am a little nervous about this. If you have laminate in your kitchen, what has your experience been? I really want the same flooring between the LR and the kitchen, so while LVT is an option, that is not as appealing.

If you have laminate you love, please share a photo and tell me about it! I am especially looking for a medium toned wood that will look good with dark gray stained cabinets.

Featured Answer

sail_away

8 years ago

We put LVT tile planks (click together) in our kitchen/family room. We are, overall, happy with it. It's not as elegant as the hardwood floors in the living room/dining room area, but I was too worried about water damage to risk hardwood in the kitchen. We considered tile, but I've had it before and don't like it---it's too hard, it will chip (although that is less of a problem than it used to be), and then there's the grout. We considered marmoleum, but we couldn't self-install and have a warranty, and the ones we liked would have seams which likely would have been visible. We even briefly considered sheet vinyl but quickly ruled it out, as we didn't find anything we really liked, plus there would have been the seam issues again. We have found the LVT that we got to be very comfortable and not noisy at all. (We have a basement apartment where guests stay and that would be problematic if it were noisy.) A few people actually exclaimed that they loved our "tile," but no one who knows the least thing about flooring would mistake it for tile. We consider this an appropriate flooring for our home. It is a mid-level, neither a beginner home nor a luxury home, We've had it for a couple years and we're very happy with it.

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Comments (6)

GreenDesigns
8 years ago
LVT would work much better for a rental than vinyl. For the bathrooms too. It's waterproof first of all, and laminate is anything but. It's also much easier to remove and replace a damaged plank in the middle of the room with LVT than laminate. Why do you think all of the WalMarts have moved to LVT? It stands up better to traffic,, is quieter under foot, and doesn't require wholesale replacement when damage does occur.
steph2000
8 years ago
Are you my doppleganger, Mable? This is almost our exact circumstance, except we live here and don't rent. We are in a small ranch (in Alaska) and tore down the wall between the kitchen and the living/front door area. We are also on a slab, which limits us to engineered wood if we go with real wood.

Almost universally, the local flooring folks are recommending LVT or laminate over the engineered hardwood - even though it would give them 3x more of our money if we went with real wood. They all say that the laminates will wear better/scratch less than the wood for the same water risks and are better with animals or men who don't take boots off at the door. Some of the newer laminates have much better systems for water-resistence, too. We are seriously looking at LVT's, which is a market that has exploded a lot over the past year or two. There are now loose lay LVT options, which are great because if a plank gets damaged you can just literally use a plunger to pull up the damaged board and replace it. There are also floating, click lock systems for LVT now. (We really don't want to glue down after pulling up all this crap from our foundation and hearing horror stories about glues interacting with concrete subfloors, even though glue down has distinct advantages in terms of not needing such a level subfloor and sounding less hollow.)

We are still on the fence about it all, but my partner wants to go with a loose lay LVT floor (Kardean, XL Flooring Drop and Done or EZ-Lay). I don't love the look of the LVTs and am leaning towards laminate and taking the water risk to get a little bit of sheen and I think they reflect more light for our small home. I think the laminates look more realistic to wood, too. Currently, I'm researching a product from US Floors called CoreTec One and CoreTec Plus, which is marketed as a laminate with 100% waterproofing that is able to go over uneven surfaces.
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enduring
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I have a laminate in my kitchen that I remodeled in 2011. Its held up ok, but where the chairs and table are, there are rub marks showing up. My table is small so does scooch sometimes. We track in a lot of dirt due to the farm, and I don't sweep everyday :/ My felt pads will hold onto grit, and grind a bit. I try to keep them clear. I put a glue product at each joint when I laid it to help seal it from water. Has not been a problem with the rare water spill. It does ding, if something hard falls on it. It will take the top hard layer off of the product.

My sister put some sort of stone looking LVT with grout. It looks fabulous. I would do that in a heart beat. It is a grayish soft color and is so realistic. Looks like vein cut travertine in a cool gray family of colors.

I don't think the laminate will last another 4 years.

Look at this commercial tile from Mannington:

Found this too:

Resilient Floating Floor Guide
funkycamper
8 years ago
We put a laminate floating floor in our previous home's kitchen, now a rental. Still looks fine after 11 years of abuse. Don't have a picture. Sorry. It actually has a marble look, not a wood look. Would I recommend it? Not sure. I'm sure there are better choices. It was what fit our budget and time table at the time.
Lily Spider
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I had LVT and didn't like them. They sounded hollow especially with heels and they are slippery. I know they have become popular and the new version might be better than what I put down 10 years ago, but I did not like them at all. They did hold up pretty well tho with 2 kids and 2 big dogs.

**Every flooring choice is going to come with it's own set of issues. I put down wood after tearing out the LVT. I love it but it's already scratched from the dogs (knew that would happen) and it shows all the dog hair unlike my old LVT. Whadda gonna do?

Do you have laminate or LVT in the kitchen? Love it or hate it?

sail_away

Comments (6)

GreenDesigns

steph2000

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enduring

funkycamper

Lily Spider

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