Kitchen Flooring Options for Pacific Northwest Homes

A kitchen floor takes more abuse than any other floor in the house: dropped pans, spilled water, grit from the back door and hours of standing. In the Pacific Northwest it also has to cope with a damp climate and wet shoes for much of the year. This page compares the main options and covers the decisions that matter as much as the material: the subfloor, what goes under the cabinets, how the floor meets the next room, and what to check before the old floor comes up.

The options compared

Hardwood and engineered wood

Wood is the usual choice when the kitchen is open to rooms that already have it. A continuous wood floor ties the spaces together, and a site-finished floor leaves a sealed surface with no gaps between boards. Wood is not waterproof, though. The risks in a kitchen are slow leaks at the dishwasher, refrigerator water line and sink, not everyday spills.

Wood also moves. Boards swell in damp months and shrink in dry, heated ones. Flooring should be brought to the house and allowed to acclimate before installation, and the moisture content of the subfloor should be checked first. Engineered wood, with its cross-layered core, moves less and is the safer choice over a concrete slab or where humidity varies a lot. JDI's published planning range for a hardwood flooring add-on is $5,000-$12,000.

Luxury vinyl plank and tile

LVP has become the most common kitchen floor in practical remodels. It shrugs off water on the surface, is comfortable to stand on and is easy to clean. Two cautions. First, "waterproof" describes the plank, not the floor: water from a leak can run through the joints and sit on the subfloor underneath. Second, thin products follow every dip and ridge beneath them, so subfloor preparation matters more with vinyl than with any other material. Look at the thickness of the wear layer when comparing products, since that is what takes the traffic.

Tile

Porcelain tile is the most durable kitchen floor and is unaffected by water. Its drawbacks are comfort and the demands it makes on the structure. Tile and grout crack when the floor beneath flexes, so the framing and subfloor may need stiffening, and the tile needs a proper underlayment. Larger tiles mean fewer grout lines and need a flatter floor. Choose a finish with some texture for slip resistance when wet, and consider a stain-resistant grout. If someone in the household has trouble standing for long periods or is at risk of falls, read aging-in-place and accessible kitchen design before choosing a hard floor.

Sheet vinyl

Sheet vinyl comes in wide rolls, so a typical kitchen can be covered with one seam or none. That makes it very good at keeping water off the subfloor, and it is the lowest-cost category. It suits rental properties, laundry-kitchen combinations and tight budgets. Because it is thin and flexible, it telegraphs any flaw underneath.

Subfloor preparation

The finished floor is only as good as what is under it. Before any new flooring goes down, a careful installer will:

• Remove old layers down to a sound base where possible.
• Check for water damage, especially at the sink, dishwasher and refrigerator and along exterior doors.
• Refasten loose or squeaking panels and replace damaged sections.
• Check flatness and correct it with sanding, patching or a leveling compound.
• Measure moisture in the subfloor, and in a slab if there is one.
• Install the underlayment the flooring manufacturer calls for.

In a house with a crawl space, look below as well. A damp crawl space pushes moisture up into the subfloor and is a common reason wood floors cup. Fixing drainage or ground cover under the house comes before a new floor above it.

Should flooring run under the cabinets?

It depends on the material.

• Nail-down or glue-down hardwood and tile: usually installed wall to wall before the cabinets. The cabinets and appliances then sit at the same height, the dishwasher slides in and out freely, and a future layout change does not leave bare patches.
• Floating floors (click-together LVP, laminate, floating engineered wood): installed after the base cabinets, up to the toe kicks. A floating floor has to expand and contract freely. Pinning it under heavy cabinets and a stone countertop can make it buckle, and manufacturers commonly say so in their installation instructions.

Either way, run the flooring under the dishwasher, range and refrigerator, and make sure the finished floor height leaves the dishwasher removable. An appliance trapped behind a raised floor is a classic remodeling mistake. Because this choice changes the order of work, settle it with the cabinet plan, not afterward.

Transitions to adjoining rooms

Different floors have different thicknesses. Where the kitchen meets a hallway or dining room, the aim is a flush joint or a low, gently sloped transition strip, not a lip. Height differences are solved in the subfloor and underlayment before installation, so tell your contractor what floors adjoin the kitchen and whether you plan to replace them later. Decide where each transition falls, normally under the closed door or centered in a cased opening, and which direction planks run so the pattern carries sensibly into the next room.

Permits

Replacing a floor covering is finish work. Clark County's list of work exempt from a building permit names carpeting and similar finish work. The City of Vancouver's code exempts "painting, papering and similar finish work" without naming flooring, so if flooring is the whole project inside city limits, a call to the Permit Center will confirm it. Structural repairs to floor framing and any electrical work for floor heat are a different matter; see do you need a permit.

Choosing for your kitchen

Start with what adjoins the kitchen and whether you want one continuous floor. Then weigh water risk, comfort and how the floor will be cleaned. Removed flooring leaves as construction debris, as described in demolition debris and recycling. For more on specific materials, browse our flooring articles. JDI Construction plans flooring together with cabinets and layout so heights and transitions are resolved on paper first; see our Vancouver kitchen remodeling page to get started.