The kitchen is the place where friends and family gather to prepare food, share experiences and catch up. With that in mind, you can give the look of your kitchen a boost without spending thousands of pounds on a complete remodel. How? By looking down at your floors.
By choosing new flooring for your kitchen, you can completely transform the look of this room and get it ready for entertaining in far less time than it would take to complete an entire remodel. The key to success is to choose flooring options that are practical.
What Will Your Kitchen Floor Endure?
Before you even start thinking about colour, pattern or texture, you need to think about the amount of use your kitchen gets. Is there a lot of foot traffic through your kitchen? This can be the case if your kitchen is open concept and is used as a pathway to other rooms in your home.
Hand in hand with foot traffic comes the likelihood of accidents in terms of spillage or impact damage. The more people who track their way through your kitchen, the higher the probability that spills and other mishaps will occur. Usually, vinyl flooring is the optimal choice for those looking to freshen up their kitchen floors.
A Wide Range of Choice
Vinyl flooring is available in two formats: as a roll, or in individual tiles. Regardless which is chosen, there is an incredible variety of colours and designs that are available. For example, thanks to products like Karndean wood-effect flooring, you can get all of the warmth and luxury of wood in a durable vinyl flooring product. In addition to great choices, you’ll also find that vinyl flooring comes with a decent warranty, giving you plenty of peace of mind.
Fitting Differences
The many benefits of using vinyl flooring in your kitchen are clear, but installation can be tricky if you haven’t installed this type of floor before. The most important thing to note is that vinyl flooring on a roll will have to be installed differently than individual vinyl tiles.
Installing Tiles
Tiles can be easier to install than flooring on a roll, but you will still need to measure, prepare and lay the tiles carefully. Your kitchen should be measured, and once you have a number, calculate in extra so that you will have additional tiles on hand should you need them. You’ll then need to prepare your kitchen floor by ensuring it is both dry and level, and that all old tiles have been removed.
Ensure the new tiles have sat in the room for at least 24 hours so that they are acclimatised. Then, locating the floor’s centre point, start laying tiles. It’s best to lay tiles dry first to get a good idea of fit. When you’re ready, your tiles can be laid from the centre of the floor after either spreading tile adhesive, or peeling off the backing.
Installing a Vinyl Roll
Just as with the tiles, your kitchen floor will need to be prepared for the laying of vinyl roll flooring. You’ll also need to measure the floor and make sure that you’ve added up to 100mm around flooring edges to ensure total coverage. Vinyl roll flooring will need about 48 hours to acclimatise. As you slowly unroll the flooring, ensure that the sheet’s longer side is parallel to your kitchen’s longest wall. Your flooring will lay flat in corners by cutting a triangle into the vinyl’s corners. Flooring should be laid and cut prior to adhering it to the floor.
Once laid, your flooring can be fixed into place with spray adhesive.
In addition to vinyl, laminate flooring can also be a great choice for kitchen floors. If you’ve decided on this route, it’s important to ensure that the laminate you choose for your kitchen matches the other laminate styles you may have installed elsewhere.