Wood floor in kitchen - crazy?

[Lucysaysno]

I had posted this in home decoration but perhaps this is a better place for it...
We are considering this as we won't have underfloor heating and so tiles would be cold underfoot. Also, we really like the look of wood throughout the open plan kitchen and family room.

Is wood a crazy choice for a kitchen floor? Does anyone have any experiences of it?

The only appliance which we will have in the kitchen which might conceivably leak is the dishwasher.

We have floorboards in our kitchen, inherited from when we moved in.

I find them draughty and stuff (food etc) gets caught in the gaps.

However I don't worry too much about water spills etc as it's not laminate or dropping heavy stuff/knives as it's not Lino so won't tear.

Won't mould grow between the boards if stuff falls in? I like tiles.

We had a wood floor in a rented house. They were 200 year old Georgian planks. They had been sealed with a light varnish but cleaning around the cooker was not easy. I wood never do it again.

I would say if you are going to do it you need to buy a special rubber mat suitable for commercial kitchens. They are a bit ugly and it sort of defeats the idea of a wood floor.

I have an engineered wood floor in mine, no problems at all. Easy to clean and resistant to spills etc

I went for linoleum; it's not cold, it's easy to keep clean, it is very practical (if the dishwasher/washing machine floods it won't ruin the floor). My lino looks like tile but you can get lino that looks exactly like wood but is cheaper (no one will know).

Thanks all. It seems Taft the main concern is stuff falling between the cracks which would presumably be less if an issue with a modern engineered wood floor?

That

I like wood. I have laminate but will replace when we have the money with engineered wood. We just have a cotton rug by the sink to catch drips. We have a few of them and just chuck in the washing machine now and then when they get grubby.

I have a 20 year old wood floor and no cracks! Have grown up always with wood floors and love them. Have never had leaking appliances though. Find them easy to look after and they look great.

We had engineered wood in our last house (kitchen ran into family room, so we wanted wood). It was absolutely fine; we just had to be careful to wipe up any spills promptly,and not leave water standing on it.

Engineered wood floor here - been down for 10 years - would be in better nick if the people who had the house originally hadn't walked about at the sink area with a pair of stilettos missing the rubber heel :( Consequently its a bit pock marked. Otherwise it's worn really well - ido try not to wash it too often though as i don't think being washed every day would be good for it, so I guess it depends how house proud you are.

We are getting laminate.

We also have engineered would and absolutely fine so far - but only been down since last summer. Looks lovely

We have engineered wood in our open plan kitchen/diner/family room. There arent any gaps beteeen the planks as they sort of click together, iyswim.

It looks amazing and we love it.

Same here, engineered wood, and we have a dog - it is lovely (the floor that is ). We have underfloor heating too which is great

We have old oak floorboards throughout the downstairs (and liked them so much we replaced the knackered boards upstairs with new oak).

Love them, you don't have to be precious at all, warm under foot. I use bleach and flash wood cleaner on mine.

We are meant to be sanding them and re-finishing them soon (probably hasn't been done for more than 10 years), if we ever get round to it.

I have wooden floorboards in the kitchen, and in fact throughout the house. When we moved in, we had them all stripped back and sealed, as they were old and filthy. The kitchen had also had lino on it.
The professionals who did it sealed the gaps between the boards, and also all the nail heads, then put a shellac type coating over the whole lot.
The shellac coating means we have to be a bit careful what we use to clean them, but in general it's not a problem.

Have a look at the colour flooring vinyl, we have this in our kitchen and it's great- warm underfoot, great range of colours, easy to clean. Only downside is that only comes in two m strips so likely to be a join but the fitters will make sure it is not very obvious at all. They also do rubber floors too which look great but double the price of vinyl!

We have solid wood (bamboo - which I understand is better) throughout downstairs and no issues at all. There are no gaps and even though i'm incredibly clumsy / messy, we dont have rugs or anything.
It comes down to personal preference. Had tiles before and hated, hated, hated them. I would never have tiles ever again. Dont really like lino either so it didnt leave me with much choice

We have reclaimed old pine floorboards. They were varnished when they were put in a decade ago and still look great, although in areas of high traffic (around the cooker, sink and dishwasher) they are looking a bit worn and grubby but that's probably because I rarely clean.

I love them - they're warm underfoot and extremely low maintenance

We also have bamboo on the kitchen floor (regeberates quicker than oak etc, more sustainable). It's great for our small family.

We have Karndean that looks like wood and I love it. Easy to clean and no worrying about spills

Varnished floorboards - for twenty years. It's worked well. Never cold underfoot, warm when the sun shines on them. Easy to clean. Look lovely. Could probably do with sanding and revarnishing now as I haven't done anything to them for 15 years, but apart from that - perfect.

Thanks for all your replies, much appreciated