Wood Floors in Your Kitchen

[tomsalwasser]

Greetings fellow sawdust makers.

Our kitchen floor is vinyl and 25 years old. We are considering a wood floor. It's just the 2 of us, the kids have flown the coop. I would like to hear from you if you have wood floors in your kitchen, either solid wood or engineered wood with a solid wood surface. Not vinyl or laminate wood-look products. Not your bathroom or basement. Let's just talk about your experiences with real wood floors in your kitchen. Do you like the wood floor in your kitchen? Would you do it over again? Have you had problems with water damage or scuffing from your kitchen chairs? Thanks for your thoughts!

Tom

[kenharry]

Hi Tom. My wife and were in the same situation as you kid wise in our previous home. We hated the tile we had, so changed to a hickory engineered hardwood that we found at Lowe's. It worked out quite well. There was the occasional spill, but it wiped right up with no evidence of it. This stuff was pretty scratch resistant with our Golden retriever claws. The only caution if you are doing it yourself is to make sure both surfaces (floor to cushion and cushion to wood), is ultra clean before laying it down. After the job was all done, I had a few spots where there was apparently something underneath, and I could here a tiny muffled crunch every time I stepped on those areas.

Ken

[BuckeyeDennis]

We had an engineered oak hardwood floor installed in our kitchen when it was built in 1991. It's been through three kids, three dogs, and two cats, and still looks very good. But the bordering baseboards and thresholds, that were custom-finished, are a different story. They have been badly marred by the kids and pets, and are in need of stripping and refinishing.

I understand that engineered floors have aluminum oxide in the finish, which makes it very tough. (Also very tough on saw blades.) Spills and such are not a problem at all. It cleans up like tile, but without the grout seam to worry about.

The only worn spots in the finish are from the back feet of my wife's kitchen-table chair. She scoots back without first taking the load off the chair. So I installed some of those dense compressed-felt-like chair glides on all the chairs, and have had no further problems.

Yes, I'd do it again.

[rcplaneguy]

One consideration is adjacent flooring. In this 70 year old house I had solid oak in adjacent rooms. So, we decided to weave in the same flooring into the kitchen to replace vinyl. It came out a very nice match, Minwax golden oak stain and 3-4 coats clear poly on top.
Several years of wear now, no complaints.

[algale]

Our first floor flooring including kitchen is oak. Our house is 38 years old. We are the second owners and have been here 16 years. 2 kids plus a dog for most of that time. Still holding up nicely. Sure they could stand to be refinished mostly due to the dog's nails but no water related issues. Put a little thin rug in front of the sink and you are good to go. Much easier on the back than tile.

[rpd]

Greetings fellow sawdust makers.

Our kitchen floor is vinyl and 25 years old. We are considering a wood floor. It's just the 2 of us, the kids have flown the coop. I would like to hear from you if you have wood floors in your kitchen, either solid wood or engineered wood with a solid wood surface. Not vinyl or laminate wood-look products. Not your bathroom or basement. Let's just talk about your experiences with real wood floors in your kitchen. Do you like the wood floor in your kitchen? Would you do it over again? Have you had problems with water damage or scuffing from your kitchen chairs? Thanks for your thoughts!

Tom

We had our kitchen, dining room, living room renovated about ten years ago. A wall was removed so they became one continuous space.

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The flooring is engineered wood, maple, "hand scraped" planks with a gunstock, satin finish

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Yes we like it and would do it again.
No problems with water damage, in the hall we have had some minor flooding on a few occasions, plumbing leaks in laundry room and bathroom, that got under the flooring but has not caused any problems.
There has been a few scratches (thought the finish) and quite a few marks where the wood is marked but the finish is intact, some of these are visible in the close up (third photo).
They don't really show however due to the hand scraped surface and low gloss finish.
Care is easy, just dry mop or damp mop with a microfiber mop.

[benush26]

I helped a friend put bamboo flooring through his house, including the kitchen which is a high traffic area. The project started as a kitchen remodel that went viral! (I'm getting too old for this $*&# )

He got the flooring at Lowes. I called him to check, then looked it up and it is called Cali (specifically Fossilized).

To attest to its durability, about 8 months after we finished his oldest moved back in with wife and three children (two teenagers). His son was moving back to Helena, starting a new job while looking for a house.
The floors (kitchen living room and bed rooms) held up like iron for the nearly a year (and still do as far as I know) before his son and family moved into a new house in July (had a new one constructed so it took a while). His son was so impressed with the flooring, that is what he had installed in his new house.

I personally think it is kind of pricey plus the grain pattern is "different" , but it handles anything you want to throw at it.
They do have an older dog, but I don't think it creates much wear and tear so not certain how his stuff would hold up under a household with rambunctious pets?

Mom wanted the same stuff in her kitchen, but ended up buying the stuff available through Costco (not impressed but fairly cheap)

The install is really simple, though the loud "click" takes a bit to get used to at first, but the down side is the stuff eats saw blades . He rented then eventually bought one of those small Skilsaws that sets on the floor designed to cut flooring. His house is over 2700 sq ft. We installed that brand flooring throughout most of it (except the bathrooms and laundry/mud room). I think we went though 9 blades!!
Just another option

Be well,
Ben

[TomHoffman]

Neat Topic, My wife and I bought an old cabin on a River in Iowa, we have been rehabbing it since 2008 with 3 years off for full time RVing for her job as a traveling nurse.

We are just going to start our kitchen floors in a week, we are doing wide board pine floors that I am making out of 1X12's I have grooved the edge of each board using a router bit to cut a slot the thickness for a #20 biscuit. I'll use the biscuits to index the boards to keep them even top to bottom. We are using full length boards so no butt joints, some will be about 15' long, the rest shorter. I am going to face nail the boards down with a 15 guage finish nail with an air gun. Old floors om farm house where I grew up were face nailed. Wood movement will probably crack a board or two, but that just ads character. After all it is a cabin.

I made all my kitchen cabinets out of Quartersawn Tiger White Oak before we started traveling we are in the home stretch now

I'll fill all the nail and small imperfections on the boards the use my 6" ROS with 80 grit paper to rough sand and then rent a ROS commercial floor sander to bring it all to one finished plane. Put on sanding sealer and stain with Early American Pine stain and 3 coats of Minwax Poly Floor finish.

I'll be glad to get it done.

[nuhobby]

We have a 1995 house we bought in 2005. 3/8"-thick solid wood Oak planks throughout the 1st floor including the kitchen. When we bought the house I saw some finish-fading lines where a carpet was placed under a kitchen table that sees a lot of patio-door sunlight. I worried about it a little bit but I can't tell any difference now 10 years later. Have seen the occasional temporary "swell" by a dishwasher type spill, but it always shrinks back down later. I like that floor.

Chris

[tomsalwasser]

Thank you for all your replies! There is so much information out there on the interwebs that it gets overwhelming. I saw some warnings about water damage and scuffing from pets and chairs in a kitchen environment. Hearing your real world experiences gives me the information I need to go ahead with this project.

We originally were going to cover our old vinyl with wood-look vinyl planks. They are very nice and waterproof too. Almost impossible to scuff. Our old vinyl has issues but it's still sound and not scuffed. The floor store pro came out to measure. He pulled up a floor register and saw we have 3 layers of vinyl in our kitchen, 2 of which have an underlayment. He said it all has to come up, 3 layers cannot be covered with a 4th layer. So with all this stuff coming off the floor, we now have room for real wood. It's a decision between pre-finished solid wood and engineered with solid wood tops. The factory applied finish seems the way to go. Pretty sure we're going with the engineered. Thanks again!

Tom