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Friday 6 December 2019

What is the best flooring for the kitchen and bathroom?

For many of us, choosing a flooring comes down to two things: appearance and also practicality – especially where little ones are concerned, but there’s no reason why you can’t have both. While most of us put appearance first and practicality second, this all depends upon which room you’re looking at. Most of us would say we don’t mind sacrificing some practicality for the sake of beautiful flooring. Rooms such as the kitchen and bathroom however, must have practical flooring, due to the nature of their usage. We are going to dive into which type is the best one for your bathroom and kitchen…
 

what is the best flooring for the kitchen and bathroom

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When choosing flooring for both of these rooms, there’s one important thing to keep in mind: how resistant will it be to the damage these rooms are exposed to? Generally, you’ll want your bedroom, living room and dining rooms to all be aesthetically pleasing, but the tables tend to turn with the bathroom and kitchen.

 What is the best flooring for the kitchen and bathroom?

The first thing to consider is how waterproof is your option of flooring? Since the bathroom and kitchen are without a doubt going to see exposure to high amounts of water, this is something that should be at the top of your list. Because of this, stay away from wood flooring. Although it looks attractive and presents us with a timeless elegance that other types of flooring don’t, too much water can seep beyond the surface and cause damage. Again, although laminate is slightly better, it is only resistant to water. Tiles give us a stunning affluent look but become very slippery when anything is spilt on it, not great when you have little ones charging about the house after bath time! So, that only leaves us with one option – Luxury Vinyl Tiles. It is completely waterproof, so wins against laminate and wood in this case. It’s also rubbery and soft under foot, beating tile’s cold, slippery hardness.
  

grey bathroom with tiled floor

Now, water isn’t the only the only thing that’s going to threaten your new floors. Scratches and stains are likely to occur in these rooms, especially the kitchen, and you don’t want to be worrying about food being dropped and causing stains (especially if you come from a busy household!) Again, scratches can arise on wood flooring, however it be sanded down a number of times depending on thickness, so there is a way to repair damage. This is not possible with laminate, tiles and LVT. However, LVT and tiles are scratch and stain proof, whereas laminate is only resistant. Additionally, tiles can be known to break if anything heavy is dropped on them, so I’d definitely go for LVT if these are things you’re concerned about.


Underfloor heating is the next thing to consider. We are seeing more modern homes with this feature, so it is certainly worth giving yourself the option of this as it will help the selling value of your home when it is time to move on. This will not only add value to your home, but increase comfort, warmth and a more energy efficient way of heating your home. Since the bathroom is the place we shower and the kitchen is a room we use a lot (especially if you have snack obsessed toddlers!) then these are the rooms that we are going to want to be especially warm and comforting! This is not possible with solid wood, so stay away from this. However, engineered, tiles, laminate and LVT can cooperate with it…so, as you can see LVT has popped up again!

vinyl floorboards open plan living area with log burner and xmas tree

You can probably tell that we’ve now concluded that LVT is the best choice of flooring for the bathroom and kitchen. However, LVT has a bit of a reputation for being old fashioned and unsightly. Forget everything you’ve heard about LVT, it has been revolutionised to look beautifully modern and mimic natural products such as wood and tile. You don’t have to choose between looks and appearance, with LVT you get both!