Floor Coverings - Ahh Yeah!

**FightingFish** · 03-07-2012, 02:10 AM

Hi folks,

Background: My wife and I have been renovating an old house. The original section was built in 1850. Added on to in 1900, 1950, and 1980. It's kind of a monstrosity. We've redone the bathroom, the living room, and the stairwell. So here we are, fixing up the kitchen. The hearth of the home.

I'm looking for any advice on flooring for the kitchen. The three main contenders are: Hardwood, Tile, & Rubber flooring. Hardwood is our favorite so far. We are thinking Antique oak, gunstock. That's a Lowe's description. Anybody got any kitchen flooring advice?

**Mangyrat** · 03-07-2012, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by FightingFish

Hi folks,

Background: My wife and I have been renovating an old house. The original section was built in 1850. Added on to in 1900, 1950, and 1980. It's kind of a monstrosity. We've redone the bathroom, the living room, and the stairwell. So here we are, fixing up the kitchen. The hearth of the home.

I'm looking for any advice on flooring for the kitchen. The three main contenders are: Hardwood, Tile, & Rubber flooring. Hardwood is our favorite so far. We are thinking Antique oak, gunstock. That's a Lowe's description. Anybody got any kitchen flooring advice?

I personally like the wood floor look.
If you have wood in the rest of the house i would do the kitchen in wood also just so you don't have 2 or 3 different floor coverings.

**JiveTurkey** · 03-07-2012, 12:08 PM

The kitchen floor can take a lot of abuse, relative to the rest of the house (save the bathroom). Maybe look into Pergo.

We also like hardwood and have it everywhere but the bathroom (linoleum), kitchen (Pergo with wood pattern), and living room will eventually be hardwood (it wasn't there originally, just carpet).

**buzz** · 03-07-2012, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by FightingFish

I'm looking for any advice on flooring for the kitchen. <snip> Anybody got any kitchen flooring advice?

Yep, go with what the wife wants.

Just ask cinda.

**heftysmokes** · 03-07-2012, 12:58 PM

What is the cabinet material you have or plan to have? I personally like the contrast of a tile against wood grain cabinets. One thing to remember with tile; grout stains. So if you're tiling the kitchen you might want to look at a dark colored grout.
I also agree with mangy in that if you have wood in the rest of the house, it's nice to keep it consistent.

**FightingFish** · 03-07-2012, 03:33 PM

Thanks for the replies. The cabinets in the kitchen are oak, there was a real country theme going on. We stripped the wallpaper, painted the kneeboard white, and the walls elephant grey. We are going for more of a classic kinda look. Anyways, the majority of the house is hardwood. Is pergo more durable then hardwood? Less maintenance?

**badwhale** · 03-07-2012, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by FightingFish

Thanks for the replies. The cabinets in the kitchen are oak, there was a real country theme going on. We stripped the wallpaper, painted the kneeboard white, and the walls elephant grey. We are going for more of a classic kinda look. Anyways, the majority of the house is hardwood. Is pergo more durable then hardwood? Less maintenance?

AFAIK, Pergo is significantly less expensive, easier to install and is waterproof. On the other hand, it's not real wood.

A couple places in our house, we're putting down what is called engineered hardwood, which is layered hardwood plywood, and the top piece (in our case) is like 1/8 or 3/16" thick hardwod. It's real wood, sorta.

I'd be wary of hardwood in the kitchen just for durability with water spills etc.

Will

**buzz** · 03-07-2012, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by badwhale

AFAIK, Pergo is significantly less expensive, easier to install and is waterproof. On the other hand, it's not real wood.

A couple places in our house, we're putting down what is called engineered hardwood, which is layered hardwood plywood, and the top piece (in our case) is like 1/8 or 3/16" thick hardwod. It's real wood, sorta.

I'd be wary of hardwood in the kitchen just for durability with water spills etc.

Will

I've heard that laminates (like Pergo) have a "fake tappy" sound and feel to them.

IIRC, Engineered wood can only be sanded/refinished once or twice.

We have tile right now and soon the wifey will have worn me down enough to take that out and go with stained concrete.

Shag carpeting might be cool... just sayin

**craig** · 03-07-2012, 05:34 PM

The more a kitchen is used/stood in, the more you might want to consider Pirelli industrial flooring.

ETA: It is called "Activa" these days.

**FightingFish** · 03-07-2012, 09:02 PM

Originally Posted by craig

The more a kitchen is used/stood in, the more you might want to consider Pirelli industrial flooring.

ETA: It is called "Activa" these days.

These studded tiles are the rubber flooring I am interested in. I actually like the idea of a commercial look to the kitchen floor. We had thought about cement floor, but don't think we could support the weight.

**CoventryCat86** · 03-09-2012, 12:41 AM

I'm a fan of hardwood flooring. I would recommend raw wood (as opposed to pre-finished), finished with a primer and at least two coats of oil based polyurethane. My step-son is a flooring contractor and that's what he recommends. He's installed hundreds of floors and knows his $hit.

I know it's tempting to try and do it yourself but DO NOT DO THAT. Installing hardwood floors really needs to be done by someone who specializes in just that who has experience doing it. You have to have done the sub-floor properly, let the flooring acclimate to your house, meaning that you have to store the flooring material in the room where you plan to install it for at least three weeks to let it stabilize, check the moisture of the sub-flooring and the flooring itself, etc. There's even more to it than that, I'm just repeating only a small percentage of the things that absolutely need to be considered and taken care of after listening to my step-son describe how he does this. Like I said, it's not easy if you want it to come out right and last for a while.

Don't get fancy, go with red oak, don't even think about pine or anything soft, it will look like crap in no time.

**mrtr33** · 03-09-2012, 05:28 PM

Go nuts. Go with cork.

**CoventryCat86** · 03-10-2012, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by mrtr33

Go nuts. Go with cork.

Cork is only good for stoppers in wine bottles.

**badwhale** · 04-06-2012, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by FightingFish

These studded tiles are the rubber flooring I am interested in. I actually like the idea of a commercial look to the kitchen floor. We had thought about cement floor, but don't think we could support the weight.

Forget all this other static...any movement on this yet? Leaning any one direction? Inquiring minds want to know.

Will

**FightingFish** · 04-06-2012, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by badwhale

Forget all this other static...any movement on this yet? Leaning any one direction? Inquiring minds want to know.

Will

We are waiting on some rubber flooring samples. I used the info@prfgroup email and never received anything. After calling yesterday, somebody gave me their email @prfgroup.com. So I put another request in for samples.

This penny stuff is rather amusing. I'm afraid that would clash with our nickle flooring in the foyer.

We have carpeting in the kitchenb right now believe it or not. When we moved in the entire house was carpeted except for vinyl flooring in the bathroom. So far we've pulled almost all the carpeting up and refinished some of the old hardwood. After sanding, we simply waxed the hell out of the wood. Kinda a pain to buff every year, but its got a nice country appeal to it. If we go with the rubber flooring I think I'll be getting an oreck orbital.

**badwhale** · 04-06-2012, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by CoventryCat86

Oh okay, I've never used it before. Is that the same stuff they use to back ceramic tiles for back splashes? If so, I'm not so confident that it would provide an adequate backing for gluing the pennies to in this application. I can see how it would work fairly well to put over a wooden sub floor to then place ceramic tile over but I still can't see it holding up without cracking if you were to simply glue pennies to it and then coat it with an epoxy bar top type of finish never mind just splashing it with a couple of coats of polyurethane.

I used cement board under a tile floor in the downstairs bathroom. It is waterproof.

Also, I said I would glue the pennies down, and then grout to the surface of the pennies, then bar top epoxy. I bet it would work.

ETA: I just typed in "cement board" on google, and a shitload of images came up, FYI.

Originally Posted by FightingFish

We are waiting on some rubber flooring samples. I used the info@prfgroup email and never received anything. After calling yesterday, somebody gave me their email @prfgroup.com. So I put another request in for samples.

This penny stuff is rather amusing. I'm afraid that would clash with our nickle flooring in the foyer.

We have carpeting in the kitchenb right now believe it or not. When we moved in the entire house was carpeted except for vinyl flooring in the bathroom. So far we've pulled almost all the carpeting up and refinished some of the old hardwood. After sanding, we simply waxed the hell out of the wood. Kinda a pain to buff every year, but its got a nice country appeal to it. If we go with the rubber flooring I think I'll be getting an oreck orbital.

LOL