Laminate Flooring for the Kitchen: Advice on Flooring Choices when Selling Your Home

Tom Kraeutler asks,

We are about to begin remodeling our kitchen and need some advice on flooring. Right now we have 8 x 8 ceramic tile, but it is 19 years old and looks old and out of date.

For the rest of our kitchen, we have white washed color oak cabinets, which we recently had refinished and they look great. We are gong to install granite or something of that sort of for our countertops.

I have been thinking hardwood, laminate, cork or maybe just bigger ceramic or stone for the flooring. I want something that will really look great because as soon as the real estate market picks up, I am going to sell my home and want it to look completely up to date. What would you suggest for a floor?

Our Answer

While hardwood, laminate, cork, ceramic and stone are all great choices for a kitchen floor, given the fact that you want to sell your home, my recommendation would be laminate flooring for your kitchen floor.

Laminate flooring looks great, is available in almost unlimited styles, is almost indestructible, and is easy to put down. Plus, laminate flooring is very cost effective. While investing in kitchen improvements is a smart move, there's no sense in going luxury if you won't be around to enjoy your kitchen flooring.

Regarding the installation of your new laminate flooring, it would be best to remove the ceramic tile to get down to a solid subfloor. However, if this is too much work, you can also go over the ceramic with laminate, but just be careful not to box in your dishwasher or refrigerator with the new laminate floor so the appliances can be removed later if needed.