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Flooring Kitchens Design Dilemma

Help with Kitchen Flooring Needed

last year

We are about to embark on a kitchen renovation. We plan to expand our kitchen so that it’s more useful. We have older hardwood thin plank floors throughout the downstairs and upstairs of our house. The tile and flooring in the kitchen will be replaced - as will the cabinets, shelving by the fireplace, etc. We have a sliding glass door that leads to our backyard so we need flooring ideas that are durable, waterproof and are easy to clean. We have a four year old and a labradoodle puppy who frequently go in and out of the house. We plan on having white or very light griege cabinets with a white quartz and white or marble backsplash.

What recommendations do you have? I’ve been combing the internet and stores for tile. Im concerned about matching the old hardwood due to water, wear and diet. Here are some photos when we bought the house and a picture of some of the tile we’ve been looking at. Thanks in advance!

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Comments (3)

PRO
JAN MOYER
last year
last modified: last year
Hardwood has withstood dogs, and a bit of water for centuries. I'd get the same species hardwood, ( Oak? ) don't be afraid to use a wider board, finish/ refinish all sand on site to uniform color. Use walk off mats at entry points.

If you're willing to rip the existing floor, first floor?

An LVP ( luxury vinyl plank ) everywhere would be great. Waterproof, kinder to your back, total unity first floor. One floor is always the best.

Failing that....... a large format porcelain tile. But not nearly as kind to your feet/back. Which tile? Firmly decide your cabinet finish first.
Leslie
Original Author
last year
Thanks for your insight. We will look into hardwood as well. I didn’t think about a similar color with wider planks - I’ve been more concerned with trying to match it or focus on tile options. I’m leaning toward white cabinets since they are timeless. Now I can’t decide to go with a lighter or darker tile (if we go in that direction) and don’t love any of the options I’ve seen so far.

Would it be odd if we had luxury vinyl plank on the first floor with traditional hardwood on our second floor, including the stairs?
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You have: WARM travertine tile on the first floor. You have DARK warm wood cabinets. You have WARM countertops. The LAST thing you want sitting next to that BEAUTIFUL WARM coloured stone is gray. No gray. Nothing in your home says "I need gray to make it perfect". Nothing. Your furniture will change. Your area rugs will change. Your wall colours will change. They will all change inside of 15 years. But your PERMANENT stone or tile floors will STAY. If you must use a tile next to stone, I suggest working in the same tones. You can go darker or you can go lighter but stay inside the SAME TONES as the travertine. If you REALLY MUST HAVE GRAY - then rip out the travertine and start again. Gray and peach stone/tile do not like to play nicely together. It screams out, "I didn't want to pay to do it properly." I would recommend finding MORE travertine in a different sized tile and add it in at an angle (diagonal install). You can find a stone that is either a little darker or a little lighter. You can then add a decorative boarder to the rooms where you are installing it so that it looks like you did it on purpose. This is a great way to add more of the high-end stone to a space that already has high-end stone. But please do not add gray in with peach. They just don't like each other. Flooring snobs, like myself can see it right away. We KNOW when something has been done piece meal. We also know when someone did the piece meal NICELY vs. someone who did it without a thought to the overall look of the floor. Compliment the stone you are keeping. Let your area rugs turn the space gray. That trend is quickly dying. It makes sense to throw out a rug in 3 years. It doesn't make sense to rip out a tile floor in 3 years.
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I have a bad back and really love standing on my parents' cork kitchen floor, which they had installed 8 years ago. Their floor has weathered well and they have had no problems. This past year we renovated our kitchen and I looked into cork. The market has changed a lot. A ton of companies have been sold and combined. We got samples and did tons of research and couldn't find a company that has as much actual cork in the flooring as what my parents had. Such a small percentage is actually cork and much more of it is just underlayment material. We also had a hard time finding really experienced installers - and we live in NYC where you can find pretty much anything you want. It used to be very popular here but since so few people are using it, there are fewer installers who really know what they are doing. It is not the most beautiful flooring for sure, so in the end we really could not find a reason to use it.
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I like the first layout better than the second. Having the fridge a bit closer to the sink makes sense for prep order. And if you do want a wall oven, it's helpful for many dishes to have the cooktop close to the oven. Plus, it's really best not to have the oven opening into a traffic path. (Although I agree with Sabrina, a range is a better idea in a kitchen this size.) A few other suggestions: 1. If you move to a range, then consider placing your microwave in an upper cabinet next to the fridge. 2. Consider dropping one or both pullouts, especially if you use a range instead of wall oven. Dropping the pullouts should give you room to do a lazy susan corner instead of magic corner, which seems more useful to me. Also, spices are easier to access in a top or middle drawer, vs. kneeling down to look at the bottom shelf of a pullout. 3. Your sink is right in a corner, without a lot of space between it and the range. Ok as long as this is strictly a one-person kitchen. You could get a little more flexibility by relaxing the symmetry and moving the cooktop "north" a bit. 4. For optimal storage, make all lowers except corner be drawers, not cabinets. Can't read much print on your plans, so apologies if you are already planning this.
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You need to talk to a hardwood floor person if you want to match the floor. A good company can match just about anything, but the chances of finding a match at HD is pretty slim. If you decide to go with tile, I don't think it would be bad at all, but I see your dilemma picking one out! Definitely not the brown in your second photo. Everything you have is pretty neutral and unpatterned so you could go bold with the floor if you happen across something wonderful. Terrazzo! Talavera!
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PRO
JAN MOYER
last year
last modified: last year
No, not odd, and really no different than if your first floor was hardwood, and the upper was carpet. Or your first floor was hardwood and you came back years later...... as many folks DO AND RIPPED A CARPET from an upper and replaced with engineered hardwood, simply because they didn't have time or desire to go through a process of install, sand, finish.

The only thing to avoid? Never try to put a "wood look" plank porcelain tile against the real wood thing. It''s a fail every time. Guaranteed fail.

And every single tile shop is LOADED with them........so, NO on that.

If you do an LVP? The real hardwood you have now on first floor? Is out. So from an economic standpoint? Me? I simply add more of what I have, sand it ALL don't worry on board width match. Sand NEW AND OLD , finish, and carry on!! : ) Gorgeous with white cabinets.

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