Wooden floors in the kitchen?

[TheBeesKnee]

Advice please. And excuse the appalling illustration, I am on my phone on a moving train.

We are redoing the downstairs at the moment and have ended up with a long, open-plan kitchen diner (6m x 2m) The kitchen is a one sided galley. We are doing white shaker cabinets, oak countertop and forest green backsplash tiles.

The living room is going to have wood top coat flooring. I think continuing the same flooring throughout the dining room and kitchen would look nice and maybe give the illusion that the space is bigger than it actually is. There is a kind of wall thing that sticks out in between the two rooms where the old wall used to be.

I've been advised by the builder to put tiles down in the kitchen. I know that's the more sensible option but lack the imagination to pick tiles which would look good with the design we've gone with.

So I'm asking for inspiration or experience of having wooden floors in the kitchen - is it a bad idea?

I will just add that ours had a creak because unfortunately the heating had a fault at the time of laying it but we didn't have much option but to lay it. It was delivered 4 days late so didn't get the full warming up in an already cold house!

We have oak, oiled - its bwen great (20+ yrs old now). Matked a little over the years here and there but we are the opposite of fastidious and barely ever wash it even - and it still looks fine, and amazing when we (very occasionally) re-oil it. Much prefer the feel underfoot to tiles, and I assume we'd have had more breakages too.

But we DO regret the oak worktop adjacent to the sink. Should have had steel both sides. Oak worktop away from the sink is fine, but it can't cope with repeated wet.

I have Pergo flooring and it looks brilliant plus it is waterproof, scratch resistant and long lasting....needs to be with 2 dogs. I love it

I know you mention you don’t like vinyl flooring op but seriously have a look at karndean. I don’t like vinyl but my in laws have put it in their kitchen. It’s taken me 18 months to realise it’s not actual tiles. It looks nothing like vinyl!

I'd love to have wood in our new kitchen but I don't think it would survive my children so I'm probably going to go for the wood-look tiles that we had in our last kitchen - sounds odd but they come in floorboard type lengths and look fantastic and you can have the continuity of wood throughout. Everyone thought they were wood when we got them done - including my DM who told us off for having wood in the kitchen (and has now copied us she's so impressed with them! 😂 )Might be worth a look.

Most LVT is not tongue and groove - the one I can think of that is is a Quickstep product. We have Polyflor Expona Beveline in our kitchen and it's great. Friends have engineered wood (which is what I think the OP referred to, but not by that name) and they went for one which needs finishing rather than lacquered and it's been a nightmare.

We have lacquered wood in less trafficked areas but for the kitchen I do have tiles. I don’t find them cold and mine are a limestone copy. I did consider the same wood as we have in a room that joins the kitchen but the tiles have been brilliant. They look very expensive, but they were not. They continue into the hall where they have also been excellent.

I think wood doesn’t resist stains and water so well but if you choose a highly resistant finish you might be ok.

We have engineered wood (Quickstep) in our kitchen/dining room. It’s been down for five years and looks better with age. It’s warm underfoot and cleans up nicely with a vacuum and a damp cloth. I have no regrets.

We have Amtico in our utility room and it has lots of scratches, which is disappointing. In hindsight, I would have chosen tiles for that room.

My bamboo floors are ten years old and still work just fine in the bathrooms, kitchen, dining room and utility room.
Scratched and tired in places but cope with LOTS of abuse

I like the idea of LVT flooring but part of our floor is a concrete substrate and part of it is a joisted timber floor with ply deck over it.

Can the LVT be laid over those different substrates and will there be issues at the interface etc?

Interesting you should ask that @Dogleg as our kitchen floor is that combination. The flooring fitter will get them level and you'll not know apart from a slightly different feel as you walk over them. It certainly won't show.

Wood will work fine. Have a mat down near the sink if you are worried (also it will wear quicker in the sink/cooler area). .
But I would not recommend a wood countertop. Needs alot of maintenance and always looks awful near the sink in any house I've been in that has it.