Selecting kitchen flooring for your kitchen is a critical design decision, a decision that must take in account all the elements of your kitchen. The kitchen flooring must be durable, look good in terms of balance with the kitchen cabinets and floor plan, and be maintainable with low maintenance while not breaking your budget.

Whether building a new home or just doing a kitchen remodeling you have several choices. With so many kitchen flooring options available it’s difficult to know if you’re getting flooring that provides the right combination of price and style. You should make your choice based on your lifestyle and how you use your kitchen.

Vinyl Flooring:

Top quality sheet vinyl flooring is ideal for busy cooks. It’s easy to clean up and it’s completely waterproof and is stain proof. Depending on the size of your kitchen there are few seams to be concerned about that can trap dirt or let moisture through to the subfloor. If your kitchens is less than 12 feet wide it will be seamless because standard sheet vinyl comes in 12 foot sheets. Sheet vinyl requires no maintenance and will hold to busy traffic for years.

Sheet vinyl is extremely resilient flooring that is flexible and is slightly soft under foot. This makes it easy on your leg muscles by not causing fatigue. It also is much more forgiving of accidentally dropping glass ware.

Another vinyl choice is cushioned vinyl that has a backing layer of foam where regular sheet vinyl uses a felt backing. The foam backing vinyl provides an extra measure of comfort and adds thickness and more flexibility. The down side of foam back vinyl is that it is difficult to glue down the seams. If the size of your kitchen is greater than 12 feet you should consider using only regular felt backed vinyl.

Vinyl flooring comes in many colors and patterns. Thicker vinyl can feature a textured surface, and some mimic the appearance of ceramic tile and real stone. Textured vinyl provides good traction on wet floors.

The cost of vinyl flooring is approximately $7 a square yard installed making it one of the least expensive options for kitchen flooring. Depending on the quality and care, it can last as long as 20 years before it needs to be replaced.

Porcelain and tile flooring:

When super durability is important, porcelain floor tile, a version or regular ceramic tile is an excellent choice. Kitchen floor tiles are extremely hard, durable, stain resistant, and is impervious to moisture. It will hold up to the worst wear conditions and last for decades but it is not as comfortable as vinyl flooring. There are nearly endless choices of colors and styles to choose from. The cost of ceramic tile kitchen flooring can be as high as $20 per square foot, depending on your choice of tiling. Tile kitchen floors are not forgiving of dropped glassware.

Hardwood flooring:

Hardwood kitchen flooring is an excellent choice with its unmatched warmth and visual appeal. It is a great choice if you have an open floor plan and prefer a single flooring style that creates visual continuity beyond the kitchen. Hardwood flooring provides durability and low maintenance and depending on the finish it is also moisture resistance.

Hardwood flooring is available as solid or engineered wood laminated flooring. Laminate wood flooring has a veneer of real wood finish glued to layers of plywood. Kitchen hardwood flooring cost approximately $15 a square foot installed, depending on the complexity of the floor plan. However, hardwood kitchen flooring is not as forgiving as vinyl flooring for dropped glassware.

Considering all these options, vinyl kitchen flooring is the most popular choice for families that have several children and parents that spend a lot of time cooking. It is easy to maintain and inexpensive to purchase and install. It is also much easier on muscle fatigue and back strain.

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