Hardwoods in kitchen

[jj]

Anyone able to speak to the upkeep of having hardwood floors in the kitchen?

I'm reticent to do that as we have 4 kids under 10 and a dog.  We have hardwoods throughout our main floor right now with the exception of the kitchen.  As we plan our kitchen remodel, I had been anticipating putting in tile or something more durable.  Both designers I have spoken with though said it's best to extend the flooring throughout the dining and kitchen.  

Am I going to really regret the decision one way or the other?

[dr.girlfriend]

We have engineered hardwood in the kitchen and like them. I have a rug that lives in front of the sink and covers the area between the dishwasher and sink, where most drips go. Otherwise, I just make sure to wipe up spills ASAP. It might be bad if we had a leak or something, but it's been fine more than a year, and we had different engineered hardwood in place for about 6 years prior to this new flooring (we changed it to make it consistent throughout the ground floor when we did an addition).

[devonpow]

We have hardwoods in our kitchen and it’s super easy. We have always had hardwoods and never had an issue. We also have radiant heat in our kitchen under the hardwoods and I’m obsessed!

But I just vacuum every day and only need to mop around the dog’s water dish usually. Our cleaning lady does a solid mopping every two weeks and honestly that plus vacuuming is fine. My kids are 8 and 13 so we mostly have crumb issues lol

[lilac05]

We’ve had both. At this stage in the game, I’m happy we have tile for the durability. Not having to worry about water damage or scratches and dents from kids being kids. Things get dropped, cars get driven, kids do stupid stuff...and my floors take the beating and don’t show a thing. I’ve had hardwood in kitchens before (granted it was pretty soft and showed EVERYTHING, and that could be fixed by a wise decision on which product to purchase).

I prefer the look of hardwood, but the durability of tile. But I don’t love the wood-look tiles. And that’s exactly why we haven’t even started to seriously consider remodeling our kitchen. LOL.

Hardwood is MUCH easier on my body. I wear solid-soled slippers or shoes in the house almost all the time. It’s better in the kitchen because I have one of those mats.

[lessel]

We have hardwoods and did in a previous house and they’re totally fine and easy to care for for the most part. However, shit does happen. When we bought our new house there was an issue with the dishwasher between when we closed and moved in and it resulted in a puddle sitting on the wood floor for about four days. We had a water removal company help with drying, etc. but we still ended up having to rip out a good chunk of the kitchen floor and replace. That said, we’ve worked with an awesome wood floor guy a few times and he did the work flawlessly and you can’t tell it happened. He gave us a good deal, but between his work and the water removal it definitely wasn’t cheap!

[Velar Fricative]

Our HW floors are about 30 years old (when the house was built) and are on most of the main floor, including the kitchen. We've been here 6 years and it's clear the floors in the kitchen are in far worse shape than elsewhere on the floor. We were told these floors were basic builder floors so I'm guessing that's part of it. When we renovate our main floor in a year or two, we plan to switch over to something else in the kitchen.

[macmars45]

I just moved into a new construction house with engineered hardwood flooring throughout the main living areas of the house. My main issue 2 months in is that it already has scratches/dings in a few places in the kitchen & dining areas. I have a DS(4), but he didn't scratch the floor in multiple places the first month we lived here so it's a head scratcher for me. We have a 1 yr warranty so I'll look into seeing if the floors are covered under that policy. We just wipe up any drips immediately, sweep at least 1-2x/day and put our robot vacuum to work.

[hbomdiggity]

We have had hardwoods in kitchen and different houses and no issue.

That said, if you are someone that will insist on sanitizing/steam mopping kitchen floors, then I wouldn’t do hardwood.

[carmenere]

We have hardwoods in the kitchen. There are quite a few knicks and scuffs from 60+ years of people dropping things on the floor (myself included, I'm sure). Obviously you don't want to use any harsh cleaners, but other than that upkeep is easy.

[jj]

Jan 29, 2021 12:05:29 GMT -5 hbomdiggity said:

We have had hardwoods in kitchen and different houses and no issue.

That said, if you are someone that will insist on sanitizing/steam mopping kitchen floors, then I wouldn’t do hardwood.

Haha! I won’t insist on that. I guess I more worried there will be a spill that I won’t notice right away and it will sit. Not for days, but potentially hours.

[gerberdaisy]

I've only ever had hardwoods in the kitchen until the house we just moved into and its never been an issue. Everything breaks when dropped on tile and it isn't comfortable to stand on for a long period of time. I'd go with the hardwoods personally.

[jj]

Jan 29, 2021 12:23:14 GMT -5 carmenere said:

We have hardwoods in the kitchen. There are quite a few knicks and scuffs from 60+ years of people dropping things on the floor (myself included, I'm sure). Obviously you don't want to use any harsh cleaners, but other than that upkeep is easy.

This is a good to hear. Our hardwoods in our house are original to the house (1957), but, as was common for the time, they were mostly kept under wall to wall carpeting. Most of the wear in our house has come in the last five years that we’ve been in the house when we ripped up the green shag carpeting.

[SusanBAnthony]

We destroy every kind of kitchen floor so idk. We've actually never had hardwood but my parents put solid finish in place maple in their kitchen about 10 years ago. It is definitely more beat up than the areas outside the kitchen (they did the entire main floor). But otoh you can always sand down and refinish.

Meanwhile we have had tile (dropped metal pans and chipped the tile), sheet linoleum (dropped sharp stuff and cut nicks, also easy to nick when moving appliances in and out), pergo (bubbles up on edges from water), and LVT (similar issues to linoleum with dropping sharp stuff). So there is an opportunity to ruin floors no matter what you choose! I kind of just figure my kitchen floors won't look perfect and that's ok.

[dr.girlfriend]

Adding a little more detail, the floors we chose are very "weathered" looking which I think would make it pretty hard to see scratches/stains in a noticeable way:



Also, this isn't super classy, but I keep a dishtowel on the floor at all times and just swipe any drips with my foot if I see them -- mostly around the dishwasher or near the fridge if the icemaker is acting up, that kind of thing.  We don't drink much except water so we don't usually have sticky spills.  

[TBM]

Our neighbors at our last house had a tiny leak that undermined the entire kitchen floor before there was any sign of it on the top. They asked my H to replace a warped board and it turned into a huge thing between the husband and wife (because one had wanted tile in the kitchen to begin with) when we found the water/damage.

Because of that, (and an issue with our air handler that messed up our cork floor in our hall), we've sworn off wood or similar floors in kitchens and near water heaters and mechanicals that leak in weird ways.

[InBetweenDays]

We have hardwoods in our kitchen. It's been 12 years so they're dinged up a bit from life with two kids and dogs, but no worse than any other area of our house. I love them (we too have radiant heat under the floors) and would do them again on a heartbeat.

[jj]

Jan 29, 2021 13:58:18 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

We destroy every kind of kitchen floor so idk. We've actually never had hardwood but my parents put solid finish in place maple in their kitchen about 10 years ago. It is definitely more beat up than the areas outside the kitchen (they did the entire main floor). But otoh you can always sand down and refinish.

Meanwhile we have had tile (dropped metal pans and chipped the tile), sheet linoleum (dropped sharp stuff and cut nicks, also easy to nick when moving appliances in and out), pergo (bubbles up on edges from water), and LVT (similar issues to linoleum with dropping sharp stuff). So there is an opportunity to ruin floors no matter what you choose! I kind of just figure my kitchen floors won't look perfect and that's ok.

This is a great perspective to remember.  Looking at the rest of my house, I know this.  Nothing looks perfect with four young kids and it doesn't routinely bug me (occasionally it does, of course!).  I

[jj]

Jan 29, 2021 16:05:50 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Adding a little more detail, the floors we chose are very "weathered" looking which I think would make it pretty hard to see scratches/stains in a noticeable way:



Also, this isn't super classy, but I keep a dishtowel on the floor at all times and just swipe any drips with my foot if I see them -- mostly around the dishwasher or near the fridge if the icemaker is acting up, that kind of thing.  We don't drink much except water so we don't usually have sticky spills.  

I love this real life tip.  It's not one I would ever see in inspiration photos!

[icedcoffee]

Jan 29, 2021 12:33:33 GMT -5 jj said:

Jan 29, 2021 12:05:29 GMT -5 hbomdiggity said:

We have had hardwoods in kitchen and different houses and no issue.

That said, if you are someone that will insist on sanitizing/steam mopping kitchen floors, then I wouldn’t do hardwood.

Haha! I won’t insist on that. I guess I more worried there will be a spill that I won’t notice right away and it will sit. Not for days, but potentially hours.

My dog has peed on our hardwoods and it has sat for as long as 10 hours and been fine. I mean, I don’t recommend letting it sit but it’s been fine. We have the same setup you have now and plan to extend the hardwoods when we redo the kitchen.

Our family room is also the room the dog uses to go in/out and his wet paws have never been an issue on the hardwoods.

Our hardwoods definitely need to be refinished but considering they are 35 years old they are reasonably nice still.

[dr.girlfriend]

Jan 29, 2021 19:02:10 GMT -5 jj said:

Jan 29, 2021 16:05:50 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Adding a little more detail, the floors we chose are very "weathered" looking which I think would make it pretty hard to see scratches/stains in a noticeable way:



Also, this isn't super classy, but I keep a dishtowel on the floor at all times and just swipe any drips with my foot if I see them -- mostly around the dishwasher or near the fridge if the icemaker is acting up, that kind of thing.  We don't drink much except water so we don't usually have sticky spills.  

I love this real life tip.  It's not one I would ever see in inspiration photos!

Ha, "staged" vs. "reality":

[penguingrrl]

I’ve had different kitchen floors in a few different places. Hardwood is hands down my favorite.

Tile is the absolute worst. I once dropped a bowl on it. Not only did the bowl shatter, so did the stupid ugly tile. It’s also so uncomfortable to stand on.

I currently have LVP. No idea how old it is as it was here when we bought our house (4 years ago) but it looks like garbage at this point.

My mom has hardwood and it’s great. She put it in new when she bought her house (almost 20 years ago) and refinished it a few years ago when she redid the kitchen (she redid the entire 1st floor then). Other than a very few scuffs and scratches it looked the best out of any kitchen floor I’ve seen of the same age when it was ready to refinish. I find it the most comfortable to stand on for long periods as well. I can’t wait to put it in my own kitchen.

[RockNVoll]

We've had hardwood in the kitchen of both houses we've owned; it's what I prefer aesthetically and we haven't had any issues. That said, we don't have kids or pets.

Like dr.girlfriend, we also keep a small rag on the floor for quick cleanup of any drips. It lives in front of the refrigerator, under the water dispenser. In front of the sink and the stove we have gel mats for more comfort while standing, but also because with those I don't have to worry about wiping up immediately.

[pickel]

We’ve had hardwoods in the kitchen of two of our houses. We haven’t had any problems, even with three young kids.

[fryjack2]

We have hardwood. I haven't done anything special to them other than having them restained darker than the color they were when we moved in 2.5 years ago.

We vacuum the kitchen a bunch because we have our breakfast nook in there ( were we eat all our meals) and our kids seem to be forever dropping food. We mop once a week-ish or as needed.

[lolalolalola]

We have also had hardwoods in our kitchen for our last 3 homes, and no issues. I would never choose otherwise, personally. Softer under your feet, looks nicer, and easy to clean (no grout!)

[k3am]

We have hardwoods in the kitchen. I had never seen hardwoods in a kitchen until this house and I hated it just on concept.. and after living with it, I still hate it. Especially these hardwoods, since they have wide grooves in them that just collect dropped food and don't clean well, but looks fine in the rest of the house. There's water damage in a couple spots, and when we get around to replacing them, they will not be hardwood again.

[treedimensional]

I want to see hardwood floors in the kitchen. When the previous homeowner rips out the wood and installs tiles the kitchen, I'm done with that listing.

[origami]

I’ve only ever had hardwood in the kitchen so I don’t know any different. But water on the floor for a few hours hasn’t ruined our floors. My kids drip water on it every day. We have engineered hardwood in my current house and I was told that refinishing would be a huge, expensive PITA compared to other hardwood types. If I had a dog I’d get some other kind of hardwood because of it. (I looked into it because I wanted to put hardwood in carpeted rooms and can’t find an exact match)

[bittybomb]

I have oak hardwood all throughout my house, including in my kitchen. Kids ages 12, 10 and 9 and a dog. It's been fine. Our kitchen is also pretty big and it happens to be one of the places the kids play fetch with my dog so even his skidding from one end to the other hasn't been an issue.

[libbygrl109]

We have hardwoods everywhere except the kitchen, with an open floor plan. The main areas have definitely taken a beating, especially from our dog who likes to let his water trail after him after every drink, and have held up very well.