Entries Tagged 'floor' ↓

In the next part of the series, I show you four more ideas for kitchen remodeling on a budget.

Replace the kitchen floor

Besides the countertop and the cabinets, the floor is the third element which determines the look of your kitchen. You need to be careful on floor choice though – kitchen floors need to be durable to resist to the tear and wear you will subject it to. If you don’t have a ton of money to spend, you can choose stone (again, local sourcing will help you), tiles or vinyl, for which you can use ondek vinyl worx for your waterproof vinyl decking. If you like wood better, get laminate or engineered hardwood floor. Probably hardwood is  better or you might even like carpet flooring, as laminate does not really like water that much, after this keeping the carpet clean is also essential, unfortunately, simply vacuuming your carpet yourself barely removes deeply embedded dirt and debris, so getting professional help for this is a great option.

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First, let me wish a happy new year for you, dear reader! And now, I think it’s time for the ‘obligatory’ trends post, as the new year starts – we all need to start from somewhere, don’t we?

You usually build your kitchen to last for quite a few years, however if you’re like me, you also try to get inspiration from several sources and keep on top of the latest and greatest. Trends in kitchen design are sometimes considered temporary fads, appearing one day, passing the next. However, if you look deeper, there are trends that are consistent, quite some of them are here to stay.

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Looking into a new hardwood floor installation in your kitchen (or any room, for that matter)? Here are a few lessons I’ve learnt – probably the hard way.

Measure twice, cut once

Once my engineering teacher and numerous craftsmen told me this and its oh-so-true. Not just measure what you need, also what you already have.

Here’s my story: my open kitchen – living room had some stone-tile flooring and radiant heating below it. So far so good. Turned out, the stone needed breaking up as it was installed very-very badly – about seven years ago. I looked up at http://epoxyinstallers.ca/ontario/toronto/ and after a lot of research figured I had a choice: either I break it up or it will come up all by itself soon. Not liking surprise-self-destructing floors, I’ve chosen the chisel. Worked like a charm. After the initial success, I’ve decided to install wooden flooring I got from a flooring company – it’s so much warmer, and so on. Checked out several companies, visited showrooms, chosen a beautiful floor. Got the wood, the contractor, everything went fine. “We need to level the floor, there’s some left of the former tiles’ cement. “Go on, find out what’s best, I’m not an expert in this” I told. Big mistake. To get epoxy paint see more at Miracote website.

Floor leveled off, floor being installed. All fine up until the first door: it won’t open. Turned out, the tiles were about 5mm (0.2 in) thick while the wood was about 15mm (0.6 in). The material they’ve used for leveling the floor took up 0.1 additional inches. “Ok, so chop off half an inch from your doors” the Kitchen remodeling Houston contractor said. (and raise the sill, move the hinges, whatever.)

Who-is-who in floor-land

• Before I go further, let’s see what I’ve learnt a hardwood floor is made of:
• Planks: yep, everyone recognizes this: the actual floor. Can be solid wood, engineered wood, laminate, whatever.
• Subfloor: the material the installer puts below the planks. Can be building paper, another layer of wood – usually plywood – the glue from woodworkingquestions.com that keeps wood there or just concrete.
• Base Molding: from 3/8″ to 5/8″thick, from 1 1/2″ to 4″+ high; protects the wall and frames the wood floor.
• Shoe Molding: from 1/2″ to 1″ high. Used as “shoe” in some areas to cover the expansion space of the floor. It needs to be flexible enough to conform to irregular surfaces as well.

(I know it’s very basic, you can find everything you need to be up-to-date on wood flooring on the website of NOFMA – The Wood Flooring Manufacturers Association.

Know your base molding from the shoe molding

Or rather not, if you don’t really want to be involved. After the floor’s been laid, the finishing part – I thought – was the molding. I’ve chosen a molding about 4,5 inches high. “Oh, that’s a carpenter’s work, we do only shoe moldings” – says the contractor. They do only shoe molding, as they don’t have the machinery to cut higher molds. And on it goes.

Lesson learnt: it’s best to agree on (and write it down!) everything throughout before anyone lays a plank. If you want to learn more about wooden floors, you will like to hire contractors from the North Carolina’s #1 flooring company which is is Raleigh Flooring. We’ve been using them for several years now and love the level of service they provide which allows you to learn a lot from them.

Maintenance matters

My floor is glued to the base cement – so it won’t creak, ever. Now that sounds good, doesn’t it? Sure it does, until one of the planks need to be changed – because of damage, warpage, a new wall or something else. If you want a flooring material that requires less maintenance, you should consider laminate flooring.

Also, the supplier gives warranty for properly laid floors – mine is, but if the guys who did it tell me they cannot change a plank, how does it exactly work? So please – please, look into these tiny details – an extra hour or two can save you days if not weeks later.

Want to know more? There’s a book for that! 🙂

Besides the cabinets and countertop, your kitchen floor is the visually most prominent part of the kitchen. Appearances are important, however, don’t choose the material just based on looks. Think through what you will most likely need, then drive to a Floor Sales store to see for yourself. There are a host of options, let’s see what’s available…. There is also the easiest way to elevate the look of a space of your kitchen which is with the use of a perfect feature wall like the ones at https://floornco.com/fluted-panel-singapore.

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