Kitchen Flooring Ideas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
San Francisco, California, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 15, 2012 -- Kitchens are the rooms in the home that take the most abuse. The surfaces must be as permanent and cleanable as possible to withstand the wear and tear of everyday use. Selecting a material for your new kitchen's flooring requires thoughtful attention to many issues. The habits of your family; materials available; cleanability; resistance to wear; aesthetic qualities; the subsurface of the floor; compatibility with your choices in cabinetry, countertop and wall surfaces; availability and quality of natural light and artificial lighting; and lastly, budget considerations.

My goal as a designer is to give my clients the longest lasting, easiest to clean kitchen possible. To that end, here are my recommendations for a variety of flooring surfaces that can be used in kitchens with good results, their good qualities and negative qualities. I discuss the materials below generally from least to most expensive in the Bay Area.

General Considerations
• Choose a material, color and sheen that contrasts enough with the color of your cabinetry that cabinets and floor do not get lost in each other.
• Consider the reflectivity of the flooring material as well as its color. Reflective materials help to bounce light around a room, making the space lighter. Materials that absorb light make for a darker space overall.

• Compare costs of materials and installation and longevity. The longevity factor is very important and deserves considerable weight since replacing a floor is a hassle at best.
• Exposure to strong sunlight can discolor many flooring materials, Use UV-resistant film or low-e glass in any windows and/or skylights that shine onto the floor.

• The substrate under your floor choice is a concern if your choice is not compatible with the substrate. For instance, if your substrate is concrete you may have to use special installation techniques to install a hardwood floor. It can be done but the floor will possibly be higher than adjacent floors and require transitions to span the height differences at entrances. Exterior doors may have to be cut down as well. Tile, on the other hand, could be thin-set right on the concrete, making for an easier and less expensive installation. Conversely, using tile on a wood substrate with less than optimum strength almost guarantees that the tile will crack with the movement we get in our Bay Area earthquakes. Strengthening the underpinnings of the floor would substantially raise the cost of your tile floor. To save costs, choose compatible flooring material.

• Our practice of extending cabinets all the way to an eight-foot ceiling in our area impacts floor choice as well. Your cabinets must be installed at the height of the finished floor to allow removal of built-in appliances such as your dishwasher. If your finished floor to ceiling height is less than 96", and you want your cabinets to extend to the ceiling, 96" high manufactured cabinets won't fit. You will need to use 90" high cabinets and fill the remaining space with mouldings (or pay for customized cabinets). That's a 6" high loss of storage for all the cabinets that extend to the ceiling!
• The surface of a kitchen floor should be smooth, in my opinion. Anything else presents cleaning problems and tripping hazards.

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