#Kitchens: Laminate flooring in the kitchen?

We need to replace our old vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I would love to go with solid hardwood, but the house is on a concrete slab, so that's not an option. A relative advised us to put in laminate. She's had laminate in her house for a number of years, and it looks great. She does not have it in the kitchen, although she says they do plan to put it in the kitchen in a year or so.

The flooring guy at Home Depot said that while laminate can be put in a kitchen, he doesn't really advise it. He says that even small water splatters can cause the laminate surface to buckle or wave. He said we would have to be meticulous about wiping up every little drop of water right away. He suggested we go with engineered hardwood, which he says is not as easily water damaged as the laminate. As an alternative, he recommended the resilient vinyl planks that look like wood. He says they are very durable.

July 15, 2013

7:06 PM

We installed all the flooring ourselves. The first floors we did were in the den, hall and formal living/dining as part of the original renovation. They were glue-together planks - ugh. The kitchen was next a year or two later; it was click-and-lock pieces about 15 inches wide and four feet long (resembled four large tiles plus grout lines on each piece.) We eventually replaced all the bedrooms and bonus room carpet with newer oak-look laminate that was click-and-lock.

It's fairly easy to install if you have reasonable carpentry skills (can saw a straight line, understand how to measure around doorways, etc. One key is to prep the floors very well - all carpet pad tacks and staples must be removed and the floors thoroughly vacuumed to remove any debris. Buy good laminate padding/vapor barrier and compare laminate products before you buy.

To be honest, we used very inexpensive discount laminate in the bedrooms (less traffic, no need for the ultra-tough finish that the more public rooms needed.) If I had it to do again, I'd probably opt for bamboo or engineered flooring instead of the plastic-y laminate. But those options weren't available when we were renovating the house when we moved in back in 2000 (and continued in 2001 and 2002 and 2003 and so on - it never really ended until we moved!) And we got a lot of compliments on the flooring over the years. The golden oak color fit the era of the ranch-style house and many people assumed it was wood and original to the house.