While remodeling your kitchen, you may spend a lot of time choosing the best appliances, considering any layout changes to make your kitchen more functional, and weighing top-of-the-line countertops against more affordable versions. But don't forget to consider what material you'll use to renovate the kitchen floor.
Here are some criteria to use when choosing a kitchen floor material for your next kitchen remodel.
1. Nonslip Surface
The kitchen is likely the spot in your home most liable to have spills of wet or messy items, such as beverages, wet food, wet rags, cleaners, and so on. A material that won't instantly transform into a slick surface at each spill is ideal. As such, some potential flooring types that are less slippery when wet include rubber tiles, cork, non-slip vinyl, and slate.
2. Easy Cleaning
Another consideration related to spills is that you don't want your floor to be too porous. An extremely porous surface can absorb spills and become stained. For instance, if you're going to have natural tile or stone flooring, you'll need to ensure that it's coated to keep messes from seeping in. Wood flooring can also be porous unless it has a waterproof coating.
3. Water Resistance
Even beyond large spills, a kitchen floor is often near an outside door, meaning it may be subject to muddy shoes that get the floor wet. Small drops of water from dishwashing or food preparation can often end up on the floor as well. So, an ideal kitchen floor will need to be relatively water-resistant.
Rather than a wood or laminate floor, you'll want to consider flooring materials such as cork or rubber for maximum water resistance. Natural stone and natural slate can also be water-resistant when correctly finished.
4. Durability
Your kitchen likely sees a lot of foot traffic between factors like going in and out the back door, trips to the fridge, and normal food preparation and dishwashing activities. So, the kitchen floor will need to be able to put up with a lot of wear and tear, day in and day out. Some of the hardest and most durable types of flooring material can include stone or slate, hardwood, and tile.
These are some of the chief criteria you'll want to keep in mind when deciding between different flooring materials for your kitchen. Once you've decided on one or two best types, you can start looking at price ranges, colors, and aesthetics, and other considerations to help you narrow down your choice even further until you pick the exact product your kitchen needs. Contact a kitchen remodeling contractor for more information.
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