blogChoosing the Perfect Kitchen Flooring – Our Guide

The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in your home and is often one of the rooms that families spend the most time together in. Many families eat both breakfast and dinner in the kitchen and sometimes even lunch too, so it's important to make your kitchen feel homely. With plenty to focus on when decorating your kitchens, such as cabinets and appliances, it can be easy to overlook the kitchen flooring. Your floor should complement the rest of the kitchen, but it can be difficult choosing the right kind of flooring, which is why we have put together a guide.

What’s the Best Kitchen Flooring?

Each type of kitchen flooring has advantages and disadvantages, the best kitchen flooring depends on your circumstances and needs. If you’re unsure what the differences between each type of kitchen flooring are, we have put together a guide to highlight which of the most popular flooring best suits your needs.

• Laminate Wood – this is one of the most affordable and cost-effective choices for kitchen flooring. It is also easy to install and comes in a wide range of finishes. However, it can be slippery and is not refinish-able.
• Real Wood Flooring – in contrast to laminate, real wood flooring is attractive and can be refinished. It is also very durable but is generally much more expensive than laminate and can be difficult to install.
• Vinyl Flooring – one of the biggest pros for vinyl is that it comes in such a wide variety of designs, including wooden looking designs. It is water resistant and easy to install, but it does require a perfect subfloor to ensure that you get an even finish.

Think About Your Kitchen Design

When you are thinking about choosing your kitchen flooring you should start by considering the design you are going for and the colour of your cabinets. You might be thinking about wooden flooring for the kitchen, but if you are planning on wooden cabinets this might not be the best idea. To coordinate your kitchen, you should look for kitchen flooring that complements your fixings or even provides a contrast rather than matching. For example, match vinyl flooring or tiles with wooden cabinets, or opt for wooden flooring with painted cabinets.

Make Sure You Take a Sample Home

One of the most important factors to ensuring that your flooring matches your kitchen design is taking a sample home with you. It’s the easiest way to tell whether the flooring you choose matches your fixtures, but people often go straight to ordering their flooring instead of taking a sample. Even if you have to pay for the sample, it is worth taking this home to ensure that you are making the right choice with your flooring. You should also be able to return the flooring sample when you decide on the right kind of flooring too, so it's worth taking the time to be sure.

Budget for the Right Size

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when choosing their kitchen flooring, is not calculating their budget correctly. You should ensure that you calculate the flooring correctly to fit the room and also allow for at least 10% overage in order to account for offcuts. You might even need to account for a large amount of overage if you are going for patterned flooring. If you are installing the flooring yourself, you will also need to plan on the best way to get the most out of your flooring and what the best fit it is.