Looking for kitchen flooring ideas? Here’s our take on choosing wood flooring in your kitchen. Your kitchen will look great but needs to be looked after.
The kitchen is the heart of the home, it’s where you spend most of your time from cooking to entertaining to relaxing, so it often takes a ‘fair beating’ and a lot of ‘wear and tear’ So it requires much more maintenance than other types of flooring like tile, laminate or vinyl.
Here’s some things to bear in mind.
Spills are bound to happen – a tipped glass of wine or residue from the pan, it’s unavoidable. And that’s without kids! If they are cleaned up straight away, you’re not going to cause too much damage or stains to your new wood floor. We recommend having mats in the sink and laundry areas to help protect your floor.
Similar to any room in your home, you need to take good care of your wood floor to ensure it stands the test of time. Regular sweeping with a broom will help remove any bits that find their way onto the floor. These could potentially cause stains or scratches if left around so it’s important you clean on a weekly or fore-weekly basis.
We’d recommend choosing a wood floor with a lacquered finish. It’s harder wearing that oil and protects the wood at surface-level so liquid and stains can’t easily penetrate and cause damage. A lacquered finish is also more hygienic as it helps to prevent a build-up of bacteria on the floor. This is important if you have children or pets.
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a utility room, the kitchen is usually home to your washing machine and dishwasher. If these are plumbed in correctly they won’t cause any issue to your wood floor. A significant leak however has the potential to seriously warp your wood floor which will be noticable.
If you have a traditional floor-mounted oven, these could create a hotspot with the heat produced. A hotspot may dry out the wood around the area of the oven, causing the planks to shrink and distort. An easy way to resolve this is to tile around your oven.
With wood flooring it’s important that your kitchen is well ventilated and fitted with an extraction fan. Cooking will cause heat and steam which could cause the wood to naturally expand and contract. We’d recommend opening a window while cooking to assist with getting rid of the heat and moisture, protecting your wood floor.
If you’re not sold on using wood flooring or want some more kitchen flooring ideas, take a look at our top tips for a perfect finish.
Have a look at some of our kitchens for inspiration. Alternatively, you can see some of our latest projects using wood flooring on our Houzz profile.
