Designing your kitchen: The Hammer and Nails guide to a beautiful kitchen, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of our feature on kitchens. If you missed part 1, you can find it by clicking here:

Designing your Kitchen: The Hammer and Nails guide to a Beautiful Kitchen, Part 1

This week, we going to take a look at flooring:

Flooring

Flooring products have come a long way, so there are some options as to what you want to do with your kitchen flooring. You want something that is durable, long lasting, and easy to keep clean. Resilient flooring and tile are both good options that have strengths worth mentioning.

Resilient Flooring has come a long way towards looking better and is now a suitable option for your kitchen floor. It used to be that we would cover up old linoleum with plywood and put tile over top of it, but now we’re starting to see resilient flooring that closely resembles wood or stone. We say closely because it still doesn’t quite have that same texture, and the patterns in the flooring occur too often to mimic natural wood or stone. Still, this product is durable and is a lot more cost effective than the real thing.

Tile, in our opinion, is still king. Yes, tile is generally more expensive than other flooring options, but it stands the test of time. Some people will extoll the virtues of stone flooring, but for the best bang for your buck, both Michael and Robert agree that porcelain is a great choice for flooring. Porcelain tile is durable and reasonably priced. Installed correctly, tile flooring will outlast just about every else in your kitchen.

What about hard wood flooring? Robert says that hard wood flooring is great for living rooms and bedrooms, but not so good kitchens (and terrible for bathrooms). The kitchen is typically a high traffic area and hard wood floors in a kitchen would take a lot of abuse. Unless you’re okay with refinishing your hard wood floors often, save the hard wood for other areas in your home.

Whatever material you select for your kitchen floor, Michael suggests going with something a little darker in colour. White or light-coloured flooring looks great, but it only looks great when it’s clean. Every spill, drip, or dust bunny can easily be seen on a light coloured floor. A dark coloured floor hides these things a little easier. Robert disagrees, however. He tells Michael to mop the floor a little more often to avoid these issues. A lighter coloured floor provides a nice contrast to darker cabinets and it gives the illusion of more space.

Click here to start reading Part 3.

If you’re in the Greater Edmonton area and are looking for a contractor for you renovation project, visit our website at www.nordalta.com/contact/ to find information on how to contact us. We’d be happy to speak to you about what we can do to get the ball rolling on your next home or office project. You can also leave comments with us at robert@nordalta.com.

Michael Breault is a project coordinator for Nord Alta Construction. You can find the company website at www.nordalta.com. You can also find Michael and Nord Atla Construction on facebook at www.facebook.com/NordAltaConstruction, on twitter at www.twitter.com/Nordalta, and on LinkedIn.

Robert Breault is the president and owner of Nord Alta Construction. You can find the company website at www.nordalta.com. You can also find Robert and Nord Alta Construction on facebook at www.facebook.com/NordAltaContruction and on LinkedIn.