ᐅ Who has experience with hardwood flooring in the kitchen?

Our parquet flooring has been in place for 8 years now, and apart from the usual signs of wear, it still looks more or less like it did on the first day. In the living area, the same wood shows more wear.

I wouldn’t want to install anything else.

A brief introduction: We have a closed kitchen on the ground floor; it was clear from the beginning that only tiles would be suitable since there is also a patio door leading directly into the kitchen.

However, even with an open kitchen in the living area, I would personally always choose tiles. Because I know myself. When I cook, bake, or preserve food, something always ends up on the floor, sometimes only noticed hours later. When washing dishes by hand, some water drips onto the floor; when loading and unloading the dishwasher; when refilling the coffee machine; when peeling and cutting vegetables (I love beetroot...); when baking cookies; decorating cakes... This can be quite a challenge for both tiles and grout! (Yes, for this exact reason, we also installed a drain in the kitchen floor...)

In short: you have to decide for yourself. If you are careful cooks who rarely spill anything, hardwood flooring (or parquet) can definitely look beautiful. For messy people like me, that would be like pearls before swine.

We had strip parquet flooring in the kitchen for 10 years (condo for rent, first occupancy). It was a disaster, absolutely unacceptable! Every item dropped on the floor left a dent... plus you have to be extremely careful about moisture. No thanks!

If I were to have parquet flooring in an open-plan living area, I would skip it in the kitchen, level the floor there, and install plank-style tiles. However, I would choose tiles in a contrasting color rather than trying to imitate the parquet exactly.

I also have hardwood flooring in my kitchen, just like in the rest of the apartment. It looks great, is easy to maintain, and I haven’t had any problems with dripping pots, moisture on the floor, or scratches. The hardwood looks the same as in the rest of the house.

I honestly don’t see how anyone could make huge messes every day. The idea that pots, pans, and dishes constantly fall on the floor and ruin the hardwood seems like a myth to me. Otherwise, tiles would be even worse. When a heavy pot hits tiles, the damage is probably worse with the chipped tile than with the hardwood floor.

Besides, there are hands to hold onto things and cloths to clean up. I don’t know how all of you cook and bake

Fummelbrett! schrieb:

(Yes, that’s exactly why we installed a drain in the kitchen floor....)

That would make me feel like I’m in a slaughterhouse. Mess everywhere, rinsing it out, and everything going straight into the drain.

Ninaj04 schrieb:

Do you happen to have a photo?

Do you mean a photo of the kitchen? There isn’t much to see yet because it’s an old building that still needs renovation.

Addition: In the end, we laid a cotton rug between the rows and took it to the cleaners every few weeks. Certainly not ideal, but if you want (parquet) to stay beautiful, you have to make some compromises...

It also always depends on what and how often you cook in the kitchen. I know plenty of people who have kitchens costing 30,000 (or more) where they mostly just boil water for pasta, make coffee with the Jura machine, or pop frozen meals into the oven or microwave. For them, the kitchen primarily has to look good; functionality is secondary.

In that case, parquet flooring is definitely a favorable choice!

For others, the trend is increasingly toward a secondary kitchen in the pantry or utility room, where the dirty work happens while the show kitchen in the open-plan living area stays spotless—parquet flooring is, of course, no problem there either.