Kitchen floor: Wood or tiles?

Choosing flooring for your kitchen can be a difficult task, so Kitchen Finder tells you all about the pros and cons of two of the most popular choices: wood and tile.

Wood kitchen floor

Wood is a beautiful option for kitchens. It's easy to keep clean and has a timeless quality. It also comes in a huge variety of woods, from oak to cedar, and can be stained to suit your taste. As floorboards are sealed, they are also quite hygienic and mould and mildew resistant, but they may need resealing after a few years or wear and tear.

Wood is a naturally warm addition to the kitchen, with its natural tones lifting the room while giving it a sophisticated look. It can also be a great option if you discover you have perfectly good floorboards under old flooring materials. Nothing can be more satisfying than finding and restoring old wood to its former glory, and polishing floorboards, while being a challenging DIY experience, can also be a fun one.

Wood is not only warmer aesthetically, but also on the feet than tiles. And while it may be more prone to scratches than tiles, it usually doesn't crack, unless you drop a bowling ball on it (but you don't want to be bowling in the kitchen anyway).

One downside is that nice hardwood can be more expensive that tiles. But if you would like to have the look of wood but don't have the budget, then floating floors are a great option. They come at a fraction of the cost, can be installed with or without professional help, and are very durable. The average cost of a floating floor is around $4 per sq/m, and about double that if you have it installed professionally.

Kitchen tiles

Tiles are a great option for your kitchen as well. They are easy to keep clean, hygienic and come in and almost endless range of possibilities to suit your kitchen's colour scheme and overall look. It's also much easier to lay tiles than it is to install floorboards as a DIY project.

Some things to keep in mind are not only the colour scheme, but also the material the tiles are made from. Slate and granite are two of the most popular choices for kitchen flooring because they are very strong, stain, heat and scratch resistant and look fantastic. Some tiles need special treatment when being laid, so check this first if you are planning to do the laying yourself.

Floor tiles are usually 6mm thick, while wall tiles are 3mm. While floor tiles can be used for walls, wall tiles can't be used on floors, for obvious reasons. One downside to tiles is that resealing of grout may be necessary to avoid it becoming too dirty or degraded, and don't forget that re-grouting will be necessary after a few years.