We’ll let you in on some expert advice – these are the factors and materials to consider when it comes to choosing your flooring…
When choosing your kitchen floor, there are many factors to consider. The most important consideration is how you use your kitchen. The kitchen is one of the most, if not, the most important room in the house, and the place where we spend the majority of our time at home. Family, children, accessibility, pets, style and sustainability all trickle into this decision. Here are some materials that may suit you in your next remodel or floor refresh…with some expert tips from interior designer and current Home of the Year judge, Sara Cosgrove…
SHUFFLE ZONE
If you opt for timber or hard wood flooring in your kitchen, incorporating a shuffle zone (a tiled area around your sink or hob area) is a smart design choice. This is the area of the kitchen that gets the most water splashes, spillages, wear and tear and so the timber floor can get destroyed. The tiles of the shuffle zone will take that on. Sara will be incorporating a shuffle zone in her new kitchen redesign. Top tip: This is a feature that can always be retrofitted so do not panic if it is not on the immediate plans. Image via; www.rhatiganandhick.ie.
This kitchen takes shuffle zone to whole other level with great slab tiles creating a kitchen strip, while the rest of the open plan kitchen has hard wood flooring. See more on this kitchen in this sophisticated period home here.
FLOOR ZONING
The open-plan design is becoming an increasingly popular request in new kitchen renovations, says Sara. It will add value to your property and it does genuinely change the way a family interacts with each other in the home. Zoning is so important with an open plan kitchen, Sara explains. Flooring can be a great way to incorporate zoning into your kitchen, dining and living room space – and it can be a very practical decision process also. A popular way to create a separate kitchen zone is by keeping the kitchen tiled and laying down wood flooring in the living and dining area. This means the kitchen floor is ready for the wear, tear, spills and foot traffic around a busy kitchen. www.littledesignhouse.co.uk
INDOOR TO OUTDOOR TILES
If you’re thinking about tiles for your kitchen, consider this new trend. ‘Anti-slip’ is now a very popular tile term and these tiles work both indoors and outdoors. There are certain tiles with slip resistance that people are increasingly incorporating into their kitchen floor and letting them flow seamlessly from inside the kitchen to outside in the garden, says Sara. This is a sophisticated and practical design choice; making the garden more accessible while creating a streamlined, contemporary look. This kitchen boasts TileStyle’s anti-slip Bottega Topo tiles in this home in Dublin. www.tilestyle.ie
HERRINGBONE FLOOR
So on trend and so gorgeous! The herringbone floor seriously elevates your kitchen design and works fantastically in an open plan design – the more herringbone you can see the better. Wood Flooring Ireland and TC Matthews know what they’re talking about when it comes to flooring. In this open-plan kitchen in Dublin, the inclusion of the rugs create the zoning Sara so encourages and they allow the homeowner to incorporate personality into the room and points of interest. See more about this kitchen here.
NATURAL STONE
There is an undeniable charm to natural stone flooring and it most certainly looks great in a farmhouse style kitchen. Sara is moving away from natural stone in her own personal kitchen remodel but it can work for you and your family. The cleaning and upkeep of natural stone can take a bit of work but if you have the budget and a maintenance plan behind you, you should be good to go. You need to make sure the stone is properly sealed so that it is easy to clean and won’t experience the wear and tear of everyday life in a detrimental way (if a natural stone slab chips it can be very difficult and expensive to mend), and this sealing agent needs to be topped up regularly. Natural stone does tend to be a long lasting material and so that makes it durable and it will serve you for years. www.borderoak.com
POURED CONCRETE
Poured concrete flooring is trending at the moment, and is commonly used in the continent says Sara. It is a very durable floor which is great for a busy house with children, pets, various hobbies, and it creates a cool, industrial atmosphere. A top tip from interior designer Sara is to make sure you know the person who is pouring the concrete can finish the job well, an uneven concrete floor is not something you want to look at every day. You also definitely want to see that the finish is as good as the main body. The concrete in this industrial style kitchen replicates the feel of modern bars and cafes. The use of materials like oak and steel make it all the more cool and contemporary. See more about this kitchen here.
HARD WOOD FLOORING
The wide plank flooring in this Colin Maher Design kitchen very much enhances the elegance of the kitchen. Laid down by flooring experts Matt Britton, the flooring ties the kitchen together beautifully, while giving it that natural feeling. A shuffle zone or a portable mat that you can lay down and then take away is a great idea to maintain the crispness of your wooden flooring, without the constant splashes and spillages of the sink and hob. Image via; www.colinmaher.ie.
CONSIDER THE SUSTAINABILITY
We are all responsible for the ethical decisions we make when embarking on a remodel or renovation. If you have an interior designer or kitchen designer, you can suggest to them that you would like to make more sustainable choices. The building industry produces a lot of waste so it is important to consider our impact. If you have the choice between using equally durable materials from Ireland or abroad; using the ones from here is the more sustainable choice. Image via; www.panellingcentre.ie
