Have you considered cork flooring? My BFF has wood floors. It's just she and her hubby - with 3 large dogs. Although she loves the look of her wood floors, she said if she had to do it all over again she's not so sure that's the route she'd go. Hubby tracks in dirt and gravel on his boots and it scratches the floor. Doggie toenails scratch - and the dog fur is endless and really shows up.
We have decided to go with cork and will have it installed next week. Reasoning was not only because we've heard lots of positive comments on here, but because it's low maintenance and seems to bounce back from most "oopsies".
Just a thought.
---Boxie

I'm not a big fan of wood floors in kitchens, no matter how "timeless" some may say it is, or how "trendy" it currently is. From a functional standpoint, with today's building methods, it's not a matter of if water damage occurs, it's a matter of when and how much. Old homes basically used dimensional lumber for subfloors, that is when subfloors were used at all. Water drains pretty easily through the cracks in old home's wood's floors and through the cracks in the dimensional lumber subfloors and doesn't stand. Modern homes use plywood, which traps the water and it stays there with the floor soaking it up. Bingo. Water damage.

Also, even the hardest of hardwoods and the hardest prefinished ceramic impregnated oxides topcoats will need periodic "refreshing" of screening and topcoating. Site finishes cannot even compare with the hardness of prefinished, and they still show scratches and need recoating periodically. With how hard most of us are on our kitchen floors, that's something that needs to be done every 3-5 years to keep it maintained in optimum condition. Frankly, it's a hassle. You have to do the whole shebang at once unless there is a threshold for a logical stopping place, and moving everything to be able to recoat is an even bigger hassle. Maybe for some, the beauty and warmth are worth it. Not for me.

That's my roundabout way of justifying my own personal preferences. Preferences I'm sure some don't agree with and maybe some do. BUT, porecelain tile with epoxy grout and a warm floor system underneath is virtually maintainence free and the cats love it. Even sand and grit won't faze porcelain, and the epoxy grout is used in commercial situations in which stain proofing is important. Never needs to be sealed and looks brand new for the life of the install. The warm floors option is just a small bit of inexpensive luxury. It's cheap to operate, and oh so decadent to be able to stretch out your bare tootsies and warm them up on the floor.

I had wood floors installed in my kitchen and dining room eight years ago and wouldn't change them for the world. Very low maintenance, easy on the legs and gorgeous! My kids are grown now, but they and their families are here all the time and we've had plenty of spills. The worst one was a pitcher of red punch that we scrambled to wipe up fast...but you'd never know it happened. You should have seen the look on the kid's face when it happened!

The rule in this house is work fast to soak up the spill with bath towels immediately, then clean the area. Bath towels are highly absorbant and easy to wash, no harm done to the floor or the towels. I must admit that the red punch scared me, but it was a few minutes work and no sign of trouble on the floor.

The sealed grout in my bathrooms is much harder to keep clean. I can't imagine keeping it nice with cooking grease settling in it. With five kids (I have six) I'm sure you cook a lot. And, as livewireoak says, wood floors can be refinished when they need it.

I think you'd be very happy with wood floors.

Sherry

Wood floors are lovely and warm, and they can be refinished to a gorgeous state, but how long will they stay that way and how worried will you be about keeping them that way? We have 8 kids and a large dog. We did hardwood through most of the main floor, but dh got nervous about wood in the kitchen and we did Marmoleum in there and our sewing/craft room that is also the entry from our back porch. I don't worry about it at all, but find us worrying about the wood floor all the time. I want to walk and live on a floor, not worry about it. Our worry will get less with time...But it will be as the floor develops so much 'patina' that there's no use worrying about it any more. That's OK if that's what you'll like and can live with.

BTW, I just have to throw in that all laminates are not created equal, nor are the pads that are installed underneath. We had Wilsonart Estate Plus in our last house, with a top of the line acoustic pad for no plasticky sound. With our kids and the 3 dogs we had at the time, it looked new after 6 or 7 years, and I was pretty certain it would in 15 or 20, too. It just didn't show ANY wear, anywhere.

I love my wood floors, I really do. But that said, I'm not sure I'd ever have them in a kitchen again. As much as I love the look. My entire kitchen remodel started because of water damage to our hardwood floor(water line on fridge leaked while we were on vacation). We had always wanted to change the layout of the kitchen so when we realized the floors needed to be fixed, we figured there was no sense in fixing it and then having to rip it up again a couple of years later to do a remodel. We replaced the kitchen and powder room (powder room is on the other side of kitchen wall from fridge and got damaged, too) with multicolored slate. I LOVE my slate floor! I have a bad back and a lot of people warned me about working on a tile floor but it hasn't been a problem yet. We kept the hardwood everywhere else in the house and will have it refinished one of these days. But for now I have a young 100lb goldendoodle, 2 cats and 3 kids aged 7-12 so I don't see much point in refinishing them any time soon. They're not that bad anyway, just some scuffs from our current dog and our late rottweiler. The tile is easy to care for, easier than the hardwood was by far. It doesn't show dirt and if the dog slops water on it I'm not in a panic to wipe it up immediately. We'll be installing it in our basement eventually, too.

HTH and good luck!
Robin

I can speak from experience here: I share my house with a DH, toddler and a 100lb dog with paws the size of a Yeti's. In our old house we tore out all of the carpet and vinyl from the first floor and installed red oak strip flooring (I believe it was Shaw brand). It looked great for about a month and then all I could do is notice the huge gouges my dog put into the floor. He doesn't even have sharp nails, but he's 100lbs and there's only so much you can do. In the current house, we tore out all of the 22yr old carpet and put in a much harder wood species, amendoim, and I have to admit it looks fantastic and it's held up a lot better than the oak ever did. The dog put some superficial scratches in the floor but since the wood only has a clear coat and no stain, you can only notice the scratches if you're glancing at the floor at the right angle, under the right light. We had laminate in the basement of our old house and it used to drive me bonkers whenever the dog would claw to get traction on the floor and I also hated the echo the floor created, even with good padding underneath. I vowed never to put laminate flooring anywhere again, even if the dog couldn't do anything to it. Also, no matter how good technology gets, laminate always looks fake to me and I'd rather not go there. It's just never going to look as good as real wood. In the new house I wanted to put ceramic tile in the kitchen this time around but DH wouldn't hear of it. He swears he doesn't hate tile, but he just can't fine a tile in the whole wide world that he likes :) I let him win that war but I got to pretty much make every other decision with the kitchen since then. I figure we can always refinish the floors once they get to be too bad. As a previous poster said, site finished floors don't have anywhere near the same durability as factory prefinished floors so that's something to keep in mind. My DH always says that people like wood floors and never notice the scratches anyway. I guess he was right because the condition of the floors was never brought up once when we were selling the house even though I lived in fear that that was the first and only thing people would notice as they came through the house. I apologize for the stream-of-consciousness reply but I can't say my brain has been firing on all cylinders today so I hope I helped even a little :)

I was just at a flooring dealer who does nothing but wood floors. The gentleman there stated that maintenance is the key with wood floors. He said that every 5 to 9 years (depending on traffic) you get the floors professionally buffed (this raises the grain, I think) and topped with a fresh coat of sealer. It's far less expensive than a total sand and refinish. -- We only have two kids and a dog, but there's a small army of youth in the neighborhood who make a path through my kitchen almost daily. We're going the hardwood route, though I'm seriously considering a distressed finish to start with!

Since 1980 I had oak fl in my kit. One refinish with oil based poly. In our new/very old home we put in wide plank pine and finished with Land Ark oil. In the moving process we got a couple of good deep scratches. I used a green scrubby with more of the Land Ark oil -- gone. I also made a few black shoe marks. Oil on the scrubby, gone.

I don't get it. Two dogs  a huge lab and a Heinz 57 whose as tall but not as heavy  haven't been able to make a mark on our oak. I have dropped a hot 8-qt LeCreuset casserole on it. And I've generally worked the hell out of my kitchen and the floor continues to be lovely.

It's easy to walk and work on  both warm and resilient. It's forgiving to items that get dropped. It's easy to keep clean and the day to day stuff blends into the variation in the wood grain and color variations between wet mops. I don't rush to wipe up every liquid spill. If I get to it before the dogs do, that works for me  they love the ice cubes that don't make it to the glass. And it's almost infinitely renewable which is to say extremely green.

I seriously considered replacing our oak floor. It was already beginning to show wear when we bought the house 10 years ago. The house was built in the 50s and I don't know if it was the original floor (the rest of the kitchen was original). It was my GC who told me to keep it and I'm so glad I let him persuade me.

If you want a really durable finish, look into the Swedish finish. We had that on our gorgeous wood floors when I lived in a mini-ranch (5 acres, 3 horses, 7 dogs* and chickens) in Olympia, WA (typical rainyness and occasional snow in Winter). It never showed anything despite mud, dog accidents of various and sundry sorts, the "treasures" the kids would bring in, etc.

*1 lab, 1 bernese mountain/springer spaniel mix, 3 greyhounds, 1 Manchester terrier, 1 pekinese

We live in Wisconsin and just experienced a winter of 100+ inches of snow. We don't have a mudroom or other buffer before the floor of the entry way which flows into an open kitchen, laundry, and powder room area. From another door, you enter the kitchen directly from the garage. While this is convenient, it means bringing in stuff on shoes.

We had cork for 18+ years and it handled the snow/slush/dirt of winter, 2 kids and a dog well. Lots of people encouraged us to put in a wood floor. We did tile and I was really thankful this winter for that decision.

I haven't noticed a problem of strain from standing on tile (I'm in early 60s) barefoot for cooking. If I do, I'll put on some Crocs or Birkenstocks.

I don't have any experience with hardwood but my brother did tons of it and had 2 dogs A bulldog and a basset hound. I never saw these dogs move so I don't know how they scratched the floor lol. It has thousands of scratches that really show up depending on the lighting. I have been told a commercial finish is the way to go. I have no idea if that's true but worth looking in to. We did tile with epoxy grout and coudn't be happier. It's bullet proof. Every time we wip the mop out it looks exactly like it did the day it was put in. I do wonder when my $2600 tile floor will be out of date though. My brother can just sand and put down the new "in" shade. I'm really no help am I lol.

Imrainey--Wood gets harder as it ages. Our first house was a 1920's 4 square framed out of southern yellow pine and we had to predrill holes to be able to put a nail into the framing.

That, and your old floors were made with quality lumber and the best grade at that. Lots of the new stuff won't hold a candle to the old.

ci_lantro- I'll buy that. But I'll add that the "new" floor of distressed oak that went in just shortly before we bought the house (10 years ago) is holding up extremely nicely as well. That particular floor is in the hallways throughout and two rooms adjacent to the kitchen. They don't get the same workout but it's hard to baby a hallway. ;>

We have carpeted, saltillo tile and marble floors too. But the wood floors are wonderful to be sure and I'd like people to think that they'll never go out of style and can be as durable as they are beautiful.

I am also a big fan of stone floors. They're simply gorgeous! Just wouldn't want to be standing on them all day and replacing everything I dropped on them. ...would keep the dogs' claws manageable tho. ;>