flooring forum

billvincent has done this.
he is in new england.

mixing materials may be beyond your expertise. Even if you think you have found someone to do it.

to analyze how hard it will be to do, someone has to know everything about the joists, structure, and insulation.

Having seen any number of episodes of "Bang for Your Buck," I've seen several instances of homeowners who went with tile in the kitchen changing to wood in the next room, or tile in the entry changing to wood further on. Generally the decorators hate that, but I disagree. My bias is towards function.

You live in New England with the salt and the snow and the mud? There's no way you should put wood right inside a much used entry that isn't preceded by a mud room. On the other hand, wood on a kitchen floor works just fine. Ours is maybe 10 years old now and it's great. For the record, we (including the dog) are not "careful" with our wood flooring.

The trick seems to be in the transition from one floor type to another. What sort of entry are we talking about? Front door? Sliding patio door? Tile in an entry tends to be an easier design and transition than transitioning from a kitchen to a family room space. Maybe some of our picture people can find some relevant examples.

We did this with our "mudroom" (not really a room) entrance, which comes directly into the kitchen. We put quartzite there (there had been maple there) to match the quartzite in our main entry. The rest of the floor is natural maple, and we have cherry cabinets. As this description may be confusing, I can post a picture of it would help.

Sorry- pre-caffeine posting- "if it would help".

Like this?

My kitchen is travertine tile, while I have wood running through the rest of the "public" spaces in the house. The great room has carpet inset, so from the kitchen you can see three different flooring surfaces.

That's probably a big decorator no-no, but it works for us and looks quite nice. I also think the scale of the house makes a difference in how many different flooring changes you can have. Smaller spaces run the danger of looking busy with too many changes, but with larger spaces they can give a more "designed" look. Even for a smaller home though, I think a wood/tile combination can look really nice.

You can have a classy landing pad made of tile in the entry, or just tile the entire kitcheny area, and wood the rest. It'll look fine and isn't that unusual. It does provide some definition between the "rooms" but not enough to spoil the open feel. It's also sensible.

While wood is perfectly fine in a kitchen, it would probably take a beating in a main entry in winter time. With the transition you can be simple or you can be creative (or just get who ever did Shar's floors--that is a really nice transition!), as long as it's smooth and done right and the colors aren't goofy together, it'll be good.

I have this same problem. The kitchen has a walkpath adjacent to it which leads to garage and front lobby and basement stairs. We call it the "kitchen hall." DH does auto restoration and both of us are gardeners. Auto garage substances, garden dirt, and Labrador paws all create mess inside the house here and it needs to be stopped before we enter kitchen hall or balance of house. Deep into the project, I wanted the entire walkpath alongside kitchen to be tile and only the inside of the kitchen addition to be wood. This would have put stools at peninsula on a tile floor too--no fear of scratches!

But...we ended up putting tile into the kitchen hall only as far as the desk unit which faces the basement stair area. Beyond this is the peninsula stool area, floor done in oak. We cut off the tiles in a line across the walkpath and put a horizontal piece of oak along the straight edge of the cut tiles perpendicular to the walkpath and then the new oak flooring runs parallel to the peninsula and walkpath and perpendicular to the oak divider. We wanted to downplay the transition so the oak board is not decorative. We did same at junction between tile and other floors, which are oak--a perpendicular piece of gorgeous oak that runs across side to side now fills a former outside door threshold. Same for top of stairway and entrance to dining room. Good looking but no ta-dah to call attention to itself.

I have put Ikea stick-on felt bumpers at bottom of all table legs and stool legs which sit on the oak floor and so far it's worked (11 months) but I have to be diligent in knocking sand and such out of the felt when it accumulates there. Despite 3 rugs which lie between the front door and the working kitchen, there is a trail of dirt within the kitchen right now--I've been gardening. Gotta reassure myself that this is not a sign of anything bad, it's just how life will be when there's no formal front door and when real people and a dog live here. We shake rugs frequently and I sweep frequently but life goes on.

The working kitchen part of the floor is oak--easier on feet than tile is and there is no ht or texture difference in threshold at the junction of kitchen hall and dining room with another oak floor--better for when I carry plates and trays past the peninsula and into the dining room than if the floor change were there.

Sorry I don't have photos. Here's the desk area...imagine the junction just to right of desk. Photographer is standing by basement stairwell. Stools are to the right. Oak floor begins just where the peninsula Formica begins on right.
Putting tile on an angle made the front hall a little more interesting. This tile camouflages dog hair--a benefit!

[speculative mode on] This report is from 11 month vantage. Hope I continue to like the oak floor in kitchen. I started out with vinyl, excuse me, "resilient flooring" throughout the kitchen, halls, and lobby in my plan and once in a while I still wonder if I would have found it better in the long run. And...I could have called the installers and had it done in short order; this took us weeks of DIY and as I said, eternal vigilance is the price of oak floor.

I have white oak in my living room and dining area and red oak in the family room which is on the other side of the kitchen. I didn't want wood in the kitchen, so I have a porcelain tile that works fairly well with both floors. My peninsula sits on both the wood and tile.

Thank you everyone.

davidro - I will check that out, thanks

Leela4 I would love to see pics.

Thanks Shar-az, that is very pretty.

Chiefneil- glad to see a pic so I can visualize.

Florantha - I get it!!

Katsmah -your floors look really nice.

Shar-az, your tile floor is lovely. What is it - natural stone or porcelain? The border is neat!

Hi. nanj. Thanks. My floor is porcelain. My husband, did the all the floors, and the border.