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best kitchen flooring for active farm w pets

steelskies
10 years ago

I am not savvy at all about removeling or having good ideas. I need a new kitchen floor. Living on a farm, there is a lot of dirt, pet tracks, etc. being brought into my kitchen. Also, I am not big on cleaning or polishing floors.

Please give me some ideas what to get. I like the look of tile, but it cannot have grout because it seems to always get dirty and I don't want to scrub it all the time. My cabinets are rather dark, so need somewhat of a lighter color, but not too light so it shows dirt easily.

I really need help. thanks to anyone with some ideas for me.

Comments (16)

  • mark_rachel
    10 years ago

    We have laminate & we love it!! We have young children & animals. I would suggest whatever floor you decide on get a medium shade (not too light, not too dark), make sure it has texture (nothing flat & shiny), and make sure you bring home samples to see how they look & work in your space.

  • ktj459
    10 years ago

    Have you looked into marmoleum click? I'm not sure if it will be your style or not, but it has a lot of pluses as a material. We thought about doing a light checkerboard pattern in it because of its durability, but went with wood because we needed to add warmth. It's supposedly extremely easy to install, soft underfoot, and can hold up to a lot. That and you give it a quick mop with a vinegar/water solution to clean it up. No polishing and no grout!

  • Iowacommute
    10 years ago

    I hear you about messy farm life. I have vinyl in my old farm kitchen, but when we build in a couple of years I will put in a sheet linoleum. Its a solid color bodied (so if it gets scratched it blends in) and is soft on the back. Its also easy to take care of and comes in a ton of colors.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Marmoleum

  • NHBabs z4b-5a NH
    10 years ago

    Black grout has worked for us with our black and white tile. This floor is 17 years old, 12" tiles, and has seen plenty of sand, manure, and sawdust since the kitchen is the main day-to-day entry. The speckles help hide the dirt and it looks appropriate for our 1860's farm house. Prior to this the floor was linoleum, probably installed in the 50's.

  • live_wire_oak
    10 years ago

    Either tile with an epoxy grout and a Scooba, and do it once, or sheet vinyl that you replace every 10 years or so.

  • heatheron40
    10 years ago

    We have the same issue. I thought long and hard about copper slate. It would have blended perfect with the color of the dirt around here- southern red clay.... big format tiles make fewer grout lines and as Livewire said epoxy grout. My words of advice are camouflage what gets tracked in with the color you pick!
    Heather

  • Iowacommute
    10 years ago

    My last kitchen floor blended with the dirt a little too well, and its easy to tell yourself its clean. ;). Especially if you have animals and there is a chance you may get manure in the floor I would want to see that so it cleaned ASAP. Speaking from hog farm experience here. Keep the poo out of the kitchen.

  • 2ajsmama
    10 years ago

    Farmer here too (no livestock) - we take our shoes off at the garage door, and still the pad on my steam mop looks filthy. I have medium oak cabinets and a white textured (not slick) tile floor. As IowaCommute aid, you don't want the dirt to blend in too well...

  • heatheron40
    10 years ago

    Ick! I didn't mean manure, we have a cat who will occasionally leave paw prints and a DH who doesn't always leave his shoes in the utility/mudroom when he comes in from working on equipment to get water- we are not full time farmers. They're the dusty old kind that sometimes leave a print when paws are wet- I have an outside carpet runner where any clay comes off and another in the mud room. I used to scrub 2X a day and now I'm down to 2X a week- guess a little OCD so the camo really helped me relax a little. Sorry I should have clarified more.

  • rhome410
    10 years ago

    We have 8 athletic kids and have always had dirty yards/gardens...and we aren't a shoes-off house. So not a farm, but busy and with dirt tromping in.

    In our last house, we had high pressure laminate floors, which wore like iron and stayed looking new under I-forgot-to-take-off-my-cleats, and occasional metal-truck-run-across-it conditions. But be aware that not all laminates are created equal. You get what you pay for, and a quality acoustic pad is a must, too, so you don't get that cheap plasticky sound.

    When we built this house, we put in Marmoleum Click. Comfy and lovely, but they certainly do scuff and scratch. And, like the laminate, they smeared, so when you washed them, if you didn't dry them, too, you could see the swish marks in the slight sheen.

    When our dishwasher leaked and made the Marmoleum Click floors swell, we went for another option... Vinyl planks. I. LOVE. THIS. FLOORING. The particular flooring we have clicked together and floats, but there are others that glue down, too. Anyway, this floor takes it all and still looks terrific, while also being comfortable.

    Discussion of our last floor search with photos of our vinyl plank options:

    http://rhome410.blogspot.com/2012/10/torn-between-two-covers.html

    Here is a link that might be useful: Pics of the vinyl planks, installed

  • feisty68
    10 years ago

    I have seen tile installations here on gardenweb that look like they'd be a nightmare to clean, but it doesn't have to be that way. I just ripped out a tile floor that was very functional for 12 years. The grout was dark grey, properly sealed, not too wide, and not too shallow relative to the tiles. It was super practical and very easy to clean. It was rare that I had to use a brush to get gunk off. Epoxy grout would be even better.

    If I was starting over in a new home I would install these wood-look porcelain tiles:

    Here is a link that might be useful: porcelain planks printed with wood patterns in high definition

  • deedles
    10 years ago

    Wow, those vinyl planks look great, Rhome! Something like that or tile would probably be your best bet. Tile with dark epoxy grout would be a no-brainer for durability and clean-ability but vinyl might be a good choice, too.

  • StoneTech
    10 years ago

    Ceamic....'nuff said.

  • feisty68
    10 years ago

    Isn't porcelain more durable than ceramic? My ceramic tiles haven't been bomb-proof by any stretch.

  • greenhaven
    10 years ago

    Love those vinyl planks!!! Pretty sure we will do those in our bathroom when the tie comes.

    To the OP, we have cheap laminate now, and had cheap laminate in the last house, and we have two cats, two big dogs and are recent empty-nesters. Our laminate held up suprisingly well. The hardest hits came when a dog would drop a big beef bone at just the right angle and make a chip. Still there are only one or two of those. I also had to keep it very clean under the area rugs, because dirt under there would essentially act as sandpaper and scuff the finish to heck over time.

    It did not, however, clean well as rhome pointed out, even if I dried them afterward and no matter what cleaning solution I used.

    edited to add: I also keep/kept animals, horses and chickens to be exact, and am an avid gardener.

    This post was edited by greenhaven on Tue, Mar 18, 14 at 9:48

  • killinsnakes
    10 years ago

    I have two dogs and a wheelchair user. Gets a lot of use. I went with sheet vinyl after testing all kinds of flooring. All laminates I tried ended up with little warps and bubbles from water or melted snow. I can't always get right to a little puddle! My flooring is Mannington and has a little cushion to it. The dogs don't slide and crash so bad on it like they do my parents laminate! My floors are about four years old and still look great. The picture is of the floors with four days of no sweeping. Thats next on my to do list!