We have Namco/Domco vinyl tiles in our kitchen and I love it. It was my choice because of all the reasons you stated. It's almost 10 years old and looks fan-tas-tic. I'm not one to follow "trends" or other folks perception of what's good or bad, so it was a no-brainer.

Good vinyl is wonderful. Cheap vinyl gave it a bad rap. Same with laminate.

I have Amtico vinyl light cherry planks in my kitchen and laundry room. It is high end vinyl and if you go to their site they never mention that it is vinyl, which I think is a little funny.

Anyway, it's easy on the feet, super easy to clean, and water is no problem. I've had it for 5 years and it's held up very well, there is not a single nick or tear on the entire floor. I had cheap vinyl before and this is completely different. I can tell it's not wood but it fools a lot of people. I think it looks more like wood then most laminates I see.

I love sheet vinyl for all the reasons listed above.

I truly love "fun" vinyl patterns like they offered in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Some call it tacky; I call it fun.

I want hardwood in my kitchen but it's not practical with two hunting dogs and a hubby. DH wants tile in the kitchen. That's not going to happen in this old, cold North Dakota home and me with arthritis in my feet.

I'm trying to sell him on some beautiful sheet vinyl that looks like hardwood. It's amamzing, very thick and cushy.

I'd still love to find modern vinyl with a '60s style patterned, but no luck...yet.

Here's our laminate flooring (actually it is a darker shade than in the photo) We ripped out ALL of the old wall-to-wall carpeting and replaced in November, 2008.

So I can honestly say that I adore this flooring. It is "industrial" grade and thickness -- and can hold out against anything! Four cats live here -- and well -- cleaning up any icky messes is done in a heartbeat.

Don't misunderstand -- I adore hardwood and stone floors. But we simply couldn't afford them at this time -- and in this house.

Jan

I like vinyl in kitchens because you don't have to worry about it. For the most part, I want the surfaces in my home to need as little upkeep as possible.

If you have tile floors, they are cold (I live in the northeast--I can understand why tile floors are popular in warmer climes). And if you are standing on them for long periods of time, your back can start to hurt. If you drop a can of soup, a tile can crack. If you drop a plate or glass, it's a goner. And grout in the same room with cooking grease--I'm too lazy to want to deal with that.

Hardwood floors are more forgiving than tile. But they are still wood and need care so as not to get too wet or get scratched, etc.

I once rented a place with carpet in the kitchen. Low pile industrial grade carpet, but carpet none the less. Things got interesting when I spilled a cup of garlic olive oil on it. But the kitchen smelled lovely for months thereafter.

Vinyl can take getting splashed with water. It can take the cat barf. If a glass drops, it has a fighting chance of surviving.

I chose high-quality vinyl for our mudroom for all of the reasons you mentioned and I'm VERY happy with that decision! But we have hardwood in the kitchen and family room and are happy with that as well. It is Armstrong and has a very tough coating over the top that really protects it. We don't baby it at all and after two years there are some light surface scratches, but nothing that looks like anything other than patina. I think it's holding up very, very well with two adults, two kids and a larger dog.

I hope you love your decision too!

Jan (teacats), your floor looks like ours - Swiftlock Heirloom Hickory. We put it in the bedroom. Much better for my allergies that the carpet. I'm still in love with wood but it has been surprisingly easy to care for and looks good. And I love that we can slide the furniture wherever with no scratches. ;)

Susan

I agree that vinyl flooring aesthetics and functionality are great. But the health and environmental risks of PVC's in vinyl flooring are very serious. I often am too lazy to consider 'sustainability' is household matters. But avoiding the health risks of PVC's is one environmental issue really worth the effort IMO.

Here is a link that might be useful: PVC hazards

mrsmarv= can you post a pic of your tiles? the maker of them? hoosiergirl - can you post pic etc also?

gracie - you too?

I've picked out a few vinyls to go look at in the floor store - want as many as possible options to view in real when i go there...
i'm planning on vinyl in kitchen, laundry and back hallway - and both baths. the main bath vinyl looks fine to me at this time - once the dirt is cleaned off of it i might think differently tho. but if it is replaced, it'll be with vinyl.

pvc a health hazard? yikes...isn't that what my water pipes are made from?

what's your vinyl??? is it sheet vinyl?

I had bought a vinyl shower curtain that was very thick and pretty but it outgassed so bad causing me to have the worst headache and have nausea so I had to leave it outside for 2 weeks and then it still smelled to me and now was dirty. Hence, I bought myself a pretty nylon shower curtain and a nylon shower liner.

So every time I am tempted to buy a vinyl floor, I think of my shower curtain and my thick Hunter Douglas Cadence PVC Vertical blinds that outgassed for months bothering me in my home office despite being installed a few rooms away in my kitchen on the sliding door. Now that the outgassing is mostly gone these past few years, I do love the look of the blinds that curve and have a texture on them while being so easy to keep clean but I did not realize that the outgassing was poisonous. I had thought I was just sensitive to the chemicals.

We put in sheet vinyl in our kitchen/dining area that looks like hardwood. LOVE IT. Costwise it was pretty close to hardwood, but worked well for the area. Everyone thinks it's wood. It is so easy to maintain. Cleans like a charm, no polishing/waxing. Can mop with a regular damp mop, and it feels great underfoot. And it's QUIET. No Lab nails going clicky-clicky on the floor.

This is the best photo I have of it...right after we put it down. Had no smell either. I was surprised by that.

Pesky1, Maybe different vinyls are manufactuered differently so not all outgas a lot? What brand and imitation wood and stain are your beautiful floors? I love that they had no smell. My monitor has them with a reddish tone that I like.

Lynn, I'm not sure what brand or finish. We special ordered through Lowes. The floor is a very distressed reddish gold stained oak. We wanted a distressed look, and what I really like is that the vinyl is very patterned, has the feel of real wood, too. We were very lucky in that the amount we'd ordered was patterned just right so that we were able to get a seamless match at the doorway between the two rooms.

We still have remnants in our shed, I'll check tomorrow to see if I can get a manufacturer name.

pesky - i'd like to know also - and was it floated or glued down?
maybe I should put that in my tv/computer room. i wanted wood laminate but i know dbf didn't want to do it (and he knew i figured he'd be the one doing it) - so he convinced me to keep that carpet that's in it. have it professionally cleaned tho. still i'd like to be rid of carpet wherever i can.

i saved it to my pic file and lightened it - to see it better. of course depending on how much i lightened it etc the tone changed... wish it were that easy IRL! slide the lever over and take red out...slide it back and put red in...
i'd rather not have so much red tho. but man it sure doesn't look like vinyl in the pic! i gotta see this stuff.
might go to our lowe's on friday and look...

i like the idea that it's so easy to clean, isn't real shiney and the dog's nails don't hurt it. i drop and spill things on a regular basis. and hopefully it'd go right over the vinyl in my laundry room...

Here is our vinyl plank flooring when it was in the process of being installed. (Sorry--no after pictures.) Duaraplank product. It is a joy to walk on and much comfier than ceramic...and more appropriate for a basement than wood.

My only regret is that I let them talk me out of ripping out the old floor first. I was willing to do the work...they contended that it wasn't necessary. I should have pulled the old tile up...we've had to replace a few vinyl boards that "popped" after install because the old tile under them came loose.

Makes me a little nervous for down the road. But that was an installation error, not a product problem.

And I noticed no out-gassing. I wonder if higher end stuff tends to out-gas less?

Pesky1, thank you for letting me know where you bought it and what color it is. I just saved it bigger and it sure looks like real wood and your doggy seems to like it. Please when you have time find out the brand and whatever else you can find out. If I don't use it in my home, maybe I will do my laundry room with this since the cheap plastic tiles there are not under the appliances and were never finished and I never liked them.

My sheet vinyl has surprised a lot of people who thought it was tile. When were were remodeling my kitchen almost "everybody" was doing tile or wood, especially if you had granite. I wanted vinyl, easy on the feet, easy to clean. If having granite and vinyl is an oxymoron, then the next person who owns this house can change it themselves. I love it.

This is Armstrong Natural Fushions X3010 and has a texture which is still easy to clean. I also liked the look of the wood planks but it was to much wood for this kitchen.

Well shoot. I just checked the remnants in the shed and they're not marked. The vinyl is quite thick. It may have been Armstrong...I just can't recall what brand it was. I do know we paid close to $30/yd for it, tho...if that helps!

I was just at my insurance man's last week and demanded to know what kind of floor he had, it was beautiful! It looked like a slate stone and had a wood accents in it. He told me, to my surprise, that it was a high-end vinyl (laid in squares like tile) and gave me the name of the store/installer. I went there and was blown away by the selection and brought a 16 in square tile home for my hubby to see. Hubby loved it. Funny thing is I am not shopping for a floor at the moment because I have a few other projects going on.

I searches on the flooring forum regarding the brand of vinyl tile and so far received mixed reviews. The manufacturer thinks its a plus that you can put it in with grout because it looks so much like stone. But I hate grout and really liked the option of installing it without. I want to see how the edges hold up since it is not a sheet.

The brand name is Mannington Adura. Many of their floors look like wood, but I am attracted to the ones that look like stone.

I have always thought vinyl floors were easy to clean and comfortable to stand on. I am seriously considering putting this in when I'm ready for the flooring project. BTW, the installer said it would work with under floor heating pads which I would LOVE in my bathroom!

Here is a link that might be useful: Mannington Adura Luxury Vinyl Tiles

desertsteph, I took a couple pics for you, one with the light shining on it so you can see the lack of shine and the texture, and one that's backlit so you can see the color better. It's Mannington Realistique #97051, Ardesia Arabian Night. There is no wear at all on it and it cleans very easily. I truly love it!

These pictures would've fooled me that they weren't tile or wood.

I have some vinyl in my house and like that they're easy to clean. I've been tossing around the idea of what we're going to do when we start replacing (which is a ways off). Was going to do tile in the kitchen/DR and hardwood in the LR and hall but the more I think about it........ we'll have kids then and we'll always have animals (guess the kids will never fully go away either right!). Vinyl may be the perfect solution. By that time maybe they'll even come out with something better.

pesky1, I know you said your flooring boxes were unmarked, but that you bought it from Lowe's. Since it's a special order, perhaps Lowe's could look it up for you under your name...JAT...

mjsee - i don't see a link to the flooring...

natesgramma - wow - i like how plain your flooring is. i don't want to mix patterns in the kitchen and my counter top is a bit busy. it doesn't look like it has texture tho...i'll pull it up on their site.

neesie - i've read those reviews on adura. i've tried to keep up on those things -especially on here.

hoosiergirl - wow - great photos of your floor! it looks so much like real slate. i'd never know the difference. it's busier than i want for my kitchen but i do like the more matt finish on vinyl. i'll have to look and see what they have that is a bit plainer. was it a glue down or were you able to float it?

pesky - was yours glued down? does your dog know what brand it is? lol! please bribe him/her with cookies - thx! such a pretty baby. you do give a pretty good description of it tho - maybe if lowe's still carries it they'll know what it is.

i'm going to make a list of sheet vinyl i like for when i go to a flooring store in a few wks - and my trip to lowe's. haven't been to lowe's yet, just HD.

I'm assuming they glued it down (it was installed in our new home, so the contractor put it in).

Good luck with your decision!

hoosiergirl - mannington does have a good looking plain / light vinyl too and some wood looking ones.

i'll add them to my list to see IRL.

Here is a link that might be useful: wood look

Everyone that enters my home for the first time cannot believe that the flooring in my kitchen is vinyl, not tile - most visitors even bend down to touch it. As for cleaning up messes...that kitchen floor gets scrubbed ALOT!

colorblind-I love your color-coordinated pets! LOL

Thanks bozo - I didn't even realize it until someone pointed it out to me that not only are my pets color-coordinated, but my whole house is decorated in gold, brown and black.

colorblind, please give some details on your floor....what brand/color and is it sheet?

I keep looking at your pics since I'm a long time BMD lover/ex show-er etc. Had anywhere from one to three at a time nonstop for almost 30 years from 1977 til 2007 when our last old girl passed away and we decided to not get another for now.

Sorry---let me try that again...

If you click on it it will take you to my picasa album...

mjsee - thx! i'm going to add that pic into my idea folder. i really do want most of my place to nOT be carpet...

colorblind - such pretty babies! - and floor! lol! it is just amazing to me how nice some vinyl is these days... along with some of the laminate counter tops. they've come a long way. there are still some very dated vinyls out there tho - but then some people like it too and should have the option.

i'm just so grateful to see some nice, plain and light colored sheet vinyl for my possible use - that doesn't look like it's left over from the 70's.

Pesky and Mjsee, those sure look like wood.

Hoosiergirl, that looks really good.

Colorblind, beautiful floor, beautifuller pets. :o)

This is my kitchen floor and it's strip vinyl. It was very easy to lay and it wears beautifully. It doesn't show dirt and it cleans up easily.

gbsim - it's so nice to talk with another BMD worshiper. We have been blessed to share our lives with Berners - so sorry about your girl. As for my floors, they were in when we purchased the house 3 years ago. I do know it's sheet vinyl, very textured, and I could swear I have seen it in Lowes. I'll look in my home file to see if the prior owners left any info.

Oceanna, what a sweet pooch (and gorgeous flooring)!

I admit I hate sheet vinyl. I've had such bad luck with it, even the high-end stuff. It got gouged and stained and repairs eventually became painfully obvious even when done by a (pricey) professional.

However, good vinyl tile is great. The thin, shiny stuff is awful but the heavy, almost-rigid stuff can be wonderful. If a repair is needed, take up the damaged tile and put a new one down. We put $1/sf stone-look vinyl tile (Cryntel Italia Travertine from Lowes - doesn't really look like travertine, it's just a pleasant mottled shades-of-beige) in our previous house's kitchen and one bathroom before we put it up for sale and it looked absolutely smashing. We were able to DIY the installation and we are SO not the "weekend warrior" DIYers, in fact we're kind of pitiful in that department although DH is improving since we bought a fixer-upper. Many people thought it was porcelain, although whenever I heard that I thought "duhhhhh, there are no grout lines?!" :-) It did not stink like vinyl shower curtains do, not by a longshot. We ended up living with the floor for 5 months and really liked it - we spilled things on it, dropped things, etc. We left behind an extra carton of the tiles in case the new owners needed to replace any.

{{gwi:1537464}}

{{!gwi}}

When we redo the kitchen and mudroom/laundry/half bath in this house we plan on using commercial VCT at 69 cents per square foot instead of the pricey linoleum we can't afford. So many lovely colors (Armstrong has over 200 different colors and patterns in their commercial line) and it wears like iron. KGWLisa used it in her kitchen and it looks a-freakin-mazing, just like a vintage lino-tile floor. The bathroom will probably get faux-wood vinyl planks because tile is totally impossible due to deflection and floor-height issues (backerboard and tile would raise the floor an inch higher than the hallway, which creates a trip hazard).

It holds up just fine if you don't slop gallons of water all over the floor when you mop or bathe. Virtually any floor would be damaged by a major dishwasher or icemaker leak, even sheet vinyl if the water gets in around the perimeter (peeling and curling, BTDT!). The vinyl tiles actually saved our buns in the bathroom pictured above - a few days after it was installed a crappy plumber did a poor job of replacing the lav faucets and there was a terrible leak. A few tiles right in front of the vanity popped up. Had they not come up we would not have discovered the leak until the kitchen ceiling below was ruined. As it was we just took up the tiles, allowed the subfloor to dry out, slapped on some more adhesive and put the tiles back. Easy peasy.

johnmari - do you remember what brand/color the vinyl tiles were in your old house?

how about the faucet in there? do you like the high arched faucets? cons to them?

Not newly installed, but I think the old vinyl floor in this kitchen looks great...almost makes me wish my rental had stuff like this to work with.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen makeover

that looks like a neat blog. i marked it to read more later... yes, if you like old stuff it is really nice - and goes with the other stuff. sometimes putting something new/modern into an old setting just doesn't look right. At least not as good as what might have been there originally.

i do love old stuff...sigh... I AM getting old i guess - lol!

Confession... I just painted over the yellowed faux-marble sheet vinyl in my MBA, and it is now a greyed teal awaiting its third and final coat of poly. It is GORGEOUS. Goodbye, vinyl! don't let the door hit you in the rear as you leave!

desertsteph, my apologies for missing your questions for so long! The vinyl floor tiles were Lowes' Cryntel brand, style name was Italiastone (corrected name) Travertine. It didn't really look like travertine per se, it was just a pleasant mottled beige that went really well with the cabinets. They look a little pink in the picture because of the camera. There's a pretty good range of styles/colors in the Cryntel line; although Lowes doesn't have every color stocked in every store they can get any of them. IMO the rigid, mottled, lightly textured, matte-finish ones like Italiastone and Eurostone are much nicer looking than the thin, floppy, shiny ones. I just checked the Lowes website and they're up to a whole $1.24 per square foot from the 99 cents we paid. :-)

The faucet was the Ashfield from Price Pfister - got it for a pittance on eBay. :-) I LOVED IT. (I may use the bathroom version in the half bath because it's just so darn cute.) We lived with it for about 5 months while the house was on the market. The high arch was terrific for things like sheet pans and big pots that were hard to fit underneath a lower conventional faucet. Some people complain about having more splashing with high-arched faucets but we didn't have any problems with that at all. This house has the regular kind of horizontally-oriented faucet and I don't find it anywhere near as convenient - when there's a bit of spare cash I may well pick up another Ashfield on eBay and switch them out. Some people think Price Pfisters are just terrible, but I've had a few (one of the few positive things about moving so many times is that I've gotten to experience many different products and brands! or so I keep telling myself LOL) and have found them to be just fine.

anybody have any experience or thoughts on IVC Earthscapes?

I love my vinyl kitchen floor, too! Whe I had my water leak back in December, I considered other flooring, but I decided to stick w/ sheet vinyl. Tile would be too hard on my back and feet (have disc problems anyway), and anything else stressed me becasue of water problems. I drop stuff all day long and splash and spill like a kid, so sheet vinyl is best for me. My house is a small starter one, so it should be OK for resale purposes, too.

I picked out Armstrong Carrizo Vanilla, and I love, love, love it! It is a little darker than the picture in the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Armstrong Carrizo Vanilla

'I drop stuff all day long and splash and spill like a kid'

boy, that sounds like me too and i'm going for sheet vinyl. love your color straitlover - did you loose lay it or glue down?

I like yours too natesgramma - will have to look at both of them at the floor store. i like a plain, light color.

I've seen some samples of earthscapes at a local floor store - and liked it. it can be loose laid also. BUT can't find much online about it. what i did find sounded like it might tear easier than other vinyls, so I'm staying away from it.

If I were building a house today, I would put wood throughout with the exception of kitchen, laundry and baths. I'd put really great vinyl in those rooms, and wouldn't worry about "style" and resale value. Sometimes, I just want to make my life easier!

I also love "vinyl" .. thoughb I put Marmoleum in the kitchen and both bathrooms when I remodeled them 2 years ago. They have great colors, and it's a product made of natural ingredients.

{{!gwi}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Marmoleum

desertsteph,

My floor was supposed to be glued down all over according to the Armstrong paperwork. I was not there when the guy did it. I hope he did because I paid for that expensive special adhesive since that's what the paperwork called for - LOL! Some of the Armstrong stuff only needs to be glued at the edges (the vinyl we removed was like that), and you can use regular old adhesive. Some of it (of course the one I picked out!) calls for total glue down, and it uses special adhesive (like $40 a can). One thing about the edge-glued stuff that my floor guy told me: you have to be careful moving stuff so you don't end up w/ grooves or indentions or rip the vinyl.

I did see some of the lay-down type you mentioned where they don't use any adhesive at all, right? I couldn't find anything that I liked at a price I was willing to pay.