Today is the last day of summer vacation for my girls. I am full of all the mixed emotions moms usually have on this day. Part of me is saying “YEAH!” and part of me is heartbroken. It’s been a good summer, but also it’s been a bit of a whirlwind. Can’t we have just one more week?
Also, it’s pouring outside and I love the rain in early autumn. It makes the streets a little cleaner and the breeze is so nice and cool. We have the back doors and windows all open, and coloring books and puzzles all over the floors. It’s been a lovely, lazy morning. And now I’m putzing around on Pinterest looking into kitchen floors, trying to figure out which direction I want to go there. I really need to decide soon.
So far, I’m most drawn to these these marble floors. Wouldn’t they be perfect in my small kitchen? At this point, I’m open to most anything though and would love to hear what you used in your kitchens. Also, what would you never use again?
We had ceramic in our first house. Didn't love it. Hard on the feet while washing dishes and very cold first thing in the morning. We have hardwood now which is better but I'm always a little panicked when I find something spilled on the floor, wondering how long it's been there and if the wood has had enough time to absorb the liquid and therefore bubble. It's always a gamble I guess…
It would look stunning! Wonderful idea.
Can't wait to see what you choose! I need a new kitchen floor too, and I have no idea what to pick.
I hate our current kitchen floor- wilsonart snap together laminate tiles which came with the house. I never loved them, but they were fine for a while when we moved in. Now after a few years there are spaces between the tiles in the higher traffic areas of the kitchen. Crumbs gather in the spaces and then the gaps look really obvious.
A friend of mine did a gorgeous remodel in her amazing huge 1920's tudor home. The kitchen is so gorgeous and she used lanoleum for the floor. When she first told me about it I was envisioning the ugly sheet flooring we all grew up with in the 80s, but it's totally different. It's actually a natural product (made from linseed oil). My friend's custom linoleum floor has a border around the perimeter of the kitchen. It comes in tons of colors, so the possibilities are endless, it's comfortable to stand on and it's really easy to clean if you put it down in a solid sheet (although if you laid it in tiles you'd eventually have the same mess I'm currently dealing with).
I would love to this in my kitchen, terrible white vinyl flooring that is in need of some love! Thank you for sharing this lovely space :)
xoxo, Tanya
I think the floors are beautiful, but would definitely not do marble on a kitchen floor, in a family with kids (and particularly if you cook). Love pve's suggestion of the WZ porcelain tile for the look, but the ease of porcelain. There are also some new lines of floor tile that look like wood, maybe at Ann Sacks?
I have limestone floors in my front entry and back mud room, which are holding up beautifully and look a bit better with use, but they are not subjected to acids and such that are used in kitchens on a regular basis.
Interestingly, I have heard good things about cork in kitchens, but it is definitely a certain look. The marmoleum suggestion is also a great one – it is an indestructible surface, very reasonable, and you can definitely create the look of this picture with it.
I have black and white ceramic tile floors in my kitchen. I thought they were wonderful when we bought our house, but they are literally impossible to keep clean.
I have black and white ceramic tile floors in my kitchen. I thought they were wonderful when we bought our house, but they are literally impossible to keep clean.
Isn't marble harder to seal? It's a porous stone, which is why it can stain so easily.
When my parents re-did their kitchen, I believe one of the recommendations they got was that marble is better for bathrooms (counters mostly) than for kitchens.
I have black and white checkered tiles in my laundry room. If you go with porcelain tiles, I highly recommend going with black grout. This elimates all of the grout cleaning problems and it looks great!
I did granite floors in a kitchen once. Never again. So hard, so cold. The one good thing, I chose a red, black and gray speckled type of granite (not sure of the specific name of the type). Anyways, that floor never looked dirty, even when it was filthy. Seriously, I'd sweep and then I'd be like OMG! How did I have so much crap on my floor and not see it at all.
Warning: My (ultra cool) Mom had checkerboard put onto her kitchen floors, ignoring warnings from her best friend about it's ability to get dirty quickly. End of the story: she should have listened to her friend. The floors are so hard to keep clean. I was visiting last week and mentioned how she should have done terracotta throughout, as she did on other parts of the house. So easy to clean! In addition, I have dark walnut wood floors in my kitchen. So elegant, and dirt and dust do not show!
We put linoleum checker board tiles in our kitchen 14 years ago, periwinkle blue and a light grey white. They have held up so well with three kids, a dog and cat. They are comfortable to stand on and as everyone mentions, warmer in the winter than tile or marble. And no slippery issues. When we redo our kitchen, I will choose linoleum again or cork.
We put in a black and white checkered floor in our kitchen, using marble and granite tiles. I love the look, it looks fabulous next to our subway tile and stainless steel countertop. BUT – I don't think I would do it again, because it's a hard floor to stand on for too long (and in the kitchen you tend to stand up for quite a while!), it gets dirty super quickly and it's cold in the winter. He's an in depth post of us installing it: http://www.christonium.com/HomeProject/installing-black-and-white-checkerboard-marble-granite-tile-floor
Just wanted to add my agreement about slate flooring – goodness, I wish I had read these before we spent a lot of money putting in underfloor heating and laying the slate ourselves! It's my biggest regret in the work we've done in our home. It was a job and a half putting it down but it looked beautiful when it was first laid. Not even a year later and I hate it. It never looks clean and every spot, drip and bit of dirt is visible. We are now looking at stripping it again and re-sealing it because I don't want to have to rip it all up! I wish I had put hardwood in now. The checkerboard pattern is a classic and will never look out of style! Good luck in your search :) x
My BFF just bought a gorgeous house (it's basically my dream house) and her kitchen pretty much has this exact flooring… I haven't noticed a slipperiness to it, but it is honed instead of polished!
The marble floors are absolutely amazing.
Sure! A black and white checkered floor is always a classic. Just make sure that the tiles would be non-slip to avoid accidents in the kitchen. After all, with all the foot traffic the place gets on a regular basis, that would be very plausible.
Alana Geikie