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New Kitchen Floor

| Posted in Construction Techniques on October 26, 2003 10:39am

I have a linoleum floor in the kitchen right now, since 1990 when the house was built. Thinking of changing it—either prefinsihed wood or tile, or maybe something else! Just wondering what you all reccommend for a durable kitchen floor (besides linoleum of course)?

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Replies

  1. Pitt | Oct 26, 2003 11:39pm | #1

    laminate flooring. a little tedious to install but it looks godd and easy on the legs.

    1. abw12 | Oct 30, 2003 12:28am | #7

      Thanks guys, maybe I'll look into laminate.

      1. brownbagg | Oct 30, 2003 01:21am | #8

        Hey I can take you to a house couple miles away that has dirt floors. My house has concrete floor and I will never change, its great

  2. OneofmanyBobs | Oct 27, 2003 12:00am | #2

    Well, dirt was quite popular and was actually considered the premier floor covering for thousands of years.  Low cost, easy maintenance.  The Greeks, of course, introduced marble as a floor covering.  Durable, but prone to grease spotting and difficult to repair without the resources of a city-state.  The currently popular materials have only been in use a comparatively short time and I'd avoid them until sufficient experience is gained to understand their long-term prospects.

    I would go with dirt as a first choice.  If not that, consider cast iron.  You could be the first in your neighborhood and it would be a good conversation item.

    1. Shep | Oct 27, 2003 12:23am | #3

      Bob-- isn't the cast iron a little hard on the feet and glassware? I'd go with the dirt- you never need to clean up any spills ( now if I can just convince my wife thats the way to go<G>)

      1. OneofmanyBobs | Oct 27, 2003 12:35am | #5

        Well, yes cast iron is slightly less resilient than some of the other options.  My personal favorite, which does take some minor re-engineering of the house, is vinyl-coated wire mesh.  A very new trend.  Reduces housekeeping.  All dirt and dust simply falls through to the basement where a whole-house vaccuum sucks it away.  No cleaning ever.  Also, it enables the entire house to be lit by one single light bulb in the attic and heated by one vent.  True, it is somewhat disconcerting the first time you drop your car keys and obviously trousers rather than skirts are the prefered attire, but I've done extensive testing with my parrot and he wouldn't have it any other way. 

        1. AlanSenoj | Nov 01, 2003 02:26am | #12

          Bob,

          Just to get back to the vinyl coated wire mesh floor for a moment:

          I like the idea, but where do you get newspapers that size?

          AlanAlan Jones

    2. SledBC | Oct 27, 2003 12:30am | #4

      Haha, something I'd expect to hear from Gabe Martel

    3. luvmuskoka | Nov 01, 2003 04:25am | #15

      Bob,

      I have dirt floors in my house. Love 'em!

      I have a small nightcrawler farm next to the honey pit which is within' bacca spittin distance of the firebox.

      Ditch

  3. MojoMan | Oct 27, 2003 03:31am | #6

    Would a serious answer be OK here? We installed Pergo in the kitchen of our 70 year-old house about 10 years ago after being unhappy with refinished pine (too soft) and cermaic tile (too hard, cracked). We've been very happy with it, and many new styles are available today. It's quite easy to install, and is forgiving of imperfect subfloors. It's held up well to the traffic of a busy family.

    Al Mollitor, Sharon MA

    1. TLJ | Oct 30, 2003 01:43am | #9

      I'm glad to hear of a relatively long-term experience with laminate. I can't help but wonder how these new things work out. I still wonder about a floor that floats everywhere except at a threshold. What if the whole mess slides away and leaves a gap?

      1. MojoMan | Oct 30, 2003 02:26am | #10

        In most cases, the laminate flooring would go under a threshold. Rabbet the threshold if necessary. The idea of the gap around the perimeter is to allow expansion and contraction. It's unlikely that the entire floor would migrate in any one direction.

        Al Mollitor, Sharon MA

        1. abw12 | Oct 31, 2003 11:35pm | #11

          I installed a prefinished hardwood floor in our upstairs foyer about a year and a half ago. The people who built the house ran it like this: drywall, moulding and trim, hardwood floors. In other words, they didn't leave any space for expansion and contraction. Interestinly over the last 13 years, there's never been a problem, and when I installed the pre-finished I did it there way—the base moulding wasn't coming off without spliting.

          I'm always reading about leaving an expansion gap. Maybe if the house goes through temperature cycles there would be problems. But this is a whole nother discussion—the expansion gap.

          1. MojoMan | Nov 01, 2003 04:04am | #14

            In the olden days, it was common to install hardwood floors last. Strip hardwood flooring has joints every 2 1/4" or so, so there are many little gaps to accommodate swelling, and every piece is nailed down. (I'm assuming your prefinished harwood is similar). So this material can swell and shrink with little ill effect.

            Laminate flooring is glued together into one monolithic sheet, so the joints don't absorb any change in dimension and a gap is needed around the perimeter. Besides, that's what the manufacturers specify, and who wants to argue with them? 

            Al Mollitor, Sharon MA

  4. Bruce | Nov 01, 2003 03:02am | #13

    Cork.

    Do a web search for "cork flooring" and you will find a great number of links about the perfect kitchen floor material.

    Formerly BEMW at The High Desert Group LLC

  5. EricGunnerson | Nov 01, 2003 06:56am | #16

    I have cherry in my main house, and prefinished maple in the ski house. The prefinished (bellawood) my wife and I did myself.

    It's a little harder than linoleum, but I really like the look. You need to be a bit more careful with water but not a lot.

    If you're replacing linoleum, it's usually easiest to pull up the underlayment at the same time rather than try to get the linoleum up from the backing.

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