Flooring Options To Consider During Your Kitchen Renovation
The floor takes the most use out of all kitchen surfaces, with people walking over it all day. When renovating, you need a tough and durable option as well as one that will enhance the appearance of the room. Here are several alternatives to consider.
Solid Timber
One possibility is hardwood timber carved into plank shapes and nailed to a subfloor. You can select between species such as oak, jarrah and blackbutt, which offer a variety of tones and shades. Though this flooring can be expensive, it's long-lasting, and you can re-sand it multiple times over the years to rejuvenate the planks. This longevity will offset the flooring's initial cost.
However, timber floorboards can react to temperature fluctuations that cause them to expand and contract. And wood can rot if it's exposed to water, so you should be careful to clean up spills directly.
Ceramic Or Porcelain Tiles
You could alternatively opt for ceramic or porcelain tiles for your kitchen floor. Porcelain is the harder and more resilient of the two, as it uses a different kind of clay that is baked at an ultra-high temperature. Porcelain tiles are non-porous, as are glazed ceramic tiles, so both are ideal for kitchens. They won't get damaged by water contact. These tiles also don't dent as much as timber can over the years. However, neither can they have the top layer sanded off like wood.
Ceramic and porcelain tiles offer an abundance of choices when it comes to their shape, colour and design. You can pick muted, earthy or vibrant tones, and you can choose patterns as well as uniform hues. Tiles also allow for interesting floor designs, as you can combine them. For example, you could use patterned tiles in most of the kitchen but create a border of uniformly coloured tiles. Alternatively, use the same colour tile for the entire floor but vary the size and shape. The potential variations are endless.
Polished Concrete
Another flooring option to consider is polished concrete. A contractor will use machinery to burnish the floor until it reaches your preferred shine level. When you opt for materials like timber floorboards and tiles, you usually pick from premade options. However, a polished concrete floor is made to order for your specific installation. You can have colours added to the cement or leave it a smooth grey, and you can have it buffed to a matte or glassy finish. The contractors can also use saws to cut patterns in the concrete to mimic tiles. Concrete flooring has a raw ambience, but it looks sophisticated because of the gloss finish.