The kitchen, for many families is the heart of the home. It’s often one of the rooms that lots of thought goes into during any renovations or decorations, because it needs to be functional and work well for each family and their lifestyle.

Part of that functionality involves choosing the best flooring for your kitchen, read on below to find out about the different options for your kitchen floor.

The most important consideration

When you are considering what flooring to use on your kitchen floor, always keep in mind that kitchens are places that suffer spillages.

It doesn’t matter how good a cook you are, no one gets through a lifetime of cooking without dropping something. Check that the floor you’ve selected can take a hot spillage and think about how your chosen flooring will clean up before you make your final decision.

Laminate

Years ago laminate floors all looked a bit cheap and nasty and weren’t particularly good quality. Things have moved on quite a bit and there are now tons of different types of laminate floors that are very good quality and would work well in a kitchen.

Laminate is stain resistant, making it a good choice for a kitchen. If you like the idea of a wooden floor but just can’t justify the budget, consider a laminate floor in your kitchen. They are easy to maintain and install and this should be a pretty quick job.

Vinyl

Vinyl flooring might be regarded as a more inexpensive flooring solution to some other options. It is easy to clean and spillages can be wiped up easily. However, it cannot be repaired and can become damaged quite easily. The money you might save putting down a vinyl floor might well have to be spent relaying an alternative after a few years.

Vinyl floors can also fade if they are in direct sunlight, so consider the natural light in your kitchen before going down this route.

Wood

My absolute favourite type of flooring is natural wood flooring, I just love the combination of it being super hygienic and easy to clean, as well as giving off a really cosy feeling.

I think it’s because I associate wood with open fires and those cosy country pubs where everything just feels perfect after a cold winter walk. Do you know what I mean?

Wooden floors are robust and long lasting and the real beauty of them is that as they age, rather than looking in need of repair, they just take on more character and look better and better. They are easy to maintain and easy to clean and there are so many different types and colours to choose from, you will for sure be able to find something to match your décor.

Tiles

There are some stunning floor tiles around that are perfect for kitchens. The downside of tiles is that they aren’t very forgiving if you drop something on them. You can pretty much guarantee that anything breakable that you drop will smash.

They can also work out pretty expensive if you have a large kitchen and they are time consuming to lay, so if you aren’t doing that job yourself, you will also have a significant labour cost to add onto the cost of the tiles.

I do love the look of a nicely tiled kitchen floor and they are easy to clean and maintain. If you keep a few spares, if there is a chip in one in the years that follow, you can easily just replace that tile, without it affecting the entire floor. They also work well with under floor heating, if that is something you are considering.

Cork

You don’t often hear of this type of flooring these days, but when I was a child, our kitchen at home had a cork floor. Our cork floor was laid by my dad, in tiles. The tiles were then given several layers of varnish to protect them, should anything get dropped or be spilled.

The cork tiles were so comfy to walk on. I think they were replaced once in the time we lived there and re-varnished once. They seemed like a pretty good option thinking back now.

What type of flooring do you have in your kitchen?