When you notice spills wipe them up.

The one suggestion I would make is to get a floor that is low to no sheen and a medium to light color. Do not do a dark color. I'm choosing Kahrs Canvas flooring for my new build (and yes it's going in my kitchen just like I have now with my floor)

It's an oak floor and I chose the bristle color. I chose it for the lack of a shine because the only problem I have with my condo floor is it shows all the dirt and spots because it's dark, completely smooth and has a sheen.

Had them throughout for well over 20 years.

rug in front of sink is a must.

Rug around dog water bowl is a bigger must.

I don't have experience with engineered wood, but I have had site finished oak floors throughout this house and in my previous house. I just dry swiffer them each day, and wet swiffer (I use a towel to dry them if there are wet areas.) They are beyond easy to care for, and always look & feel good.

Oh, and I have a rectangular sisal in front of the sink, and a sisal under the breakfast room table.

Our last home had wood floors in all the main spaces, including the kitchen, and that's my plan for our new home as well.

We didn't treat our floors especially well--we had the pet food dishes down on them without a rug, etc., and they held up well. We did have a rug in front of the sink, but that was more for softness. I did put cushion pads on the bottoms of stool and chair legs, though.

I do want to echo cpartist's recommendation for a medium stain. You will eventually drop a dish and the floor may ding a bit, and it'll show less with a medium to light stain (with dark, if you scratch through the dark layer, the light, unstained part may show).

I don't have any experience with engineered wood either, just with real wood. Our last home had a light colored oak wood floor in the kitchen - it looked exactly like the wood floors typically seen on a basketball court. It held up great, except where we had a small leak at the dishwasher and we had some minor warping, and where someone dropped a large can of peaches and dented the floor.

My boss built a new home and has wood floors throughout. His are very dark, though, and the kitchen floor always looks terrible. Every little crumb, footprint, water spot, speck of dust, etc., is visible.

We've had all different types of wood - laminate, engineered, real hardwood, old hardwood. I love actual hardwoods, and that's what we're putting in our house we're building. We have two kids, and I cook and bake just like you. Even though it's not always aesthetically pleasing, I always keep a rug in front of the sink and in front of the stove, preferably washable. I also agree on a medium tone stain. We did dark, hand-scraped engineered floors in one of our houses, and I was constantly vacuuming and cleaning. I would also be careful cleaning them because some chemicals are harmful to the finish or the wood. We just normally do soap and water. Good luck!

We've had wood floors since 1994. Prior homes were laminate and tile. The most recent is a medium stain, Swedish finish. Super happy. Would never go back to tile - so hard on the feet and back.

RE: tips - Nothing really. I guess put floor pads on furniture. Sometimes I keep a rug at the sink, sometimes not. If you have dogs, keep their nails trimmed properly.

Thank you all for your comments. I appreciate the practical advice, as well as the positive comments about dealing with hardwood floors.

We learned our lesson about dark floors several houses ago, when we purchased a home that had a small area inside the front door that was a dark sheet vinyl. It would have always looked horrible, except for the fact that my very young daughter had developed a fascination with Disney's Cinderella movie and loved to be given a bucket with a little bit of water in it and a rag to wash the approximately 4' x 6' area. When she was finished, I would quickly go over it with a rag and it would be clean until someone else entered the home. It provided entertainment, taught my daughter to work, gave me 10-20 minutes of peace, and made sure I cleaned that bit of floor every day---win-win!

We do have site finished hardwood floors in the rest of the main floor, so I've been accustomed to some of the care and maintenance of the woodfloors, and I honestly feel they are easy to maintain. However, I have had some concern about the special challenges of kitchen/dining room with water splashing/spilling and the potential for spilling various foods. I would love to have site finished hardwoods again, but the budget dictates engineered hardwood floors. I could have had site finished hardwoods in the main area and rugs in the bedrooms and office, but it was more important to me to have hard flooring everywhere in the house for two reasons: (1) my allergies/asthma are very severe; and (2) I believe all hard flooring will make cleaning quicker and simpler.

Your comments are making me feel better about the hardwoods throughout the house. If you think of anything else I should be aware of, please let me know.

To pile on - raised 3 kids and more dogs then I care to admit and never regretted wood floors in the kitchen. Never had them in a full bath, but have in a half bath and no regrets. Wood floors except in full bathrooms is all I would get if building now.

Nightowl, I'm glad you "piled on." It's exactly what I was hoping I would hear. I'd like to add that I'm not worried about some normal wear-and-tear. When we moved into our current home, the movers scratched our hardwood floors moving a freezer into the basement. It wasn't a terrible scratch and I could only see it if viewed from a certain angle. I remember telling DH that I was glad no one was hurt getting that freezer down the stairs and also that now I didn't have to worry about who would be the first one to put a scratch in our pristine floors! I have had a few people raise eyebrows when mentioning that we will be putting hardwood throughout the house, and it's good to hear I don't have to worry that it will be catastrophic.

BTW: Soap and water are really a no no nowadays on wood floors. If your floors have a polyurethane finish, then Bona and a pad work best. If you have oiled wood floors, there is a special product for those. I would check on the flooring forum for the best ways to clean your floors.

Pick an engineered wood floor with at least a 3mm wear layer. If you can afford it, the two companies always sited as the best are Mirage or Lauzon. Khar's which I chose also gets very high ratings. Here's a site with some excellent info on flooring. Hosking Web Site

CPartist, we've been told by several times to use soap and water by multiple experts in the field. This would include the company we're currently using, who have been in the milling business for almost 100 years. If it works for them, it works for me! Just didn't want anyone to think I was doling out bad advice.

This thread has been very helpful. We're planning a small lake build that will have site-finished floors in a great room that will include the kitchen and I have been worried about the same "routine maintenance" issues. (We have matte site-finished hardwood in our main areas now and they are easy to care for with all the suggestions noted above.)

One thing not mentioned is appliances. The salesman says that with hardwood floors I should consider a Bosch dishwasher because they include AquaStop leak prevention. I think this might be more of an issue with our place because it would be unoccupied much of the time, but is this something worth considering for any hardwood kitchen?

ETA: By saleman I mean an appliance salesman, not associated with any builder.

I had engineered wood floors in my kitchen from 1998-2006 and they were a disaster. Dishwasher leak, 2 disposal leaks, big spills, etc. That said, they were probably the cheapest floors available for purchase at that time.

We replaced that flooring with 20x20 tile in the kitchen area but went everywhere else with an engineered plank finish on site flooring. The wear layer is 4.7mm thick.

Being finished onsite I think makes for a more durable product. When a hot water heater decided to go out one day, the floor was saturated and it ran down a hallway. Granted, it was discovered quickly and mopped up within 10-20 minutes (that's a lot of water), and not one spot in the 7 feet section did it warp or show damage.

I would not hesitate to put this wood floor in my kitchen today.

Our plank flooring was made by Owen's. Ours is 3" hand scraped (which they pour water on to scrape it!) a matte finish and lots of dings and scratches that are easily covered with a furniture pen or smudged sharpie.

We had new hard wood flooring in the kitchen, breakfast room and entryway in our last home. I never used rugs in the kitchen (made cleaning up more difficult than it needed to be with kids always making messes!). The only damage we did to the floors in 8 years was from me wearing high heels on a daily basis! In our new home we'll have hardwood throughout the main level. I'm not too worried about taking care of it, but I am interested in how to keep it clean--vacuum, sweep, mop? With kids, I'll be cleaning it on a regular basis and hope to have a simple routine!

We have a maple floor, I finished it with Bona Traffic (used in malls). Forget the rugs.

Maven, vacuum or sweep and then run some Bona on it.

Bona has a microfiber mop (floor cleaning pad). Just spray some Bona hardwood floor cleaner, and mop. Takes minutes to dry, floor looks like day one. The maple floor I installed 9 years ago still looks good, and it gets a lot of traffic.

Thanks for the comments. Keep them coming.

A couple people have mentioned not needing to use rugs in the kitchen. I have been debating this for some time. It seems they would absorb some of the puddles of water from loading the DW. OTOH, they are just something else to clean and, more importantly, I'm looking at this house as our retirement house where we can age in place. As we age, rugs definitely become a tripping hazard. No problem now, but I can see having to consider that in the future.

This is our third house with all wood floors (site finished oak) throughout, except bathrooms/laundry. No wall to wall carpet at all. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Bottom line, a floor gets used, takes abuse and wear and tear. If you think of a floor as some precious surface, that has to be kept looking pristine, like an antique piece of furniture, then you will be mentally tortured every day as life takes place on top of your floors!

I have scratches and dents from dropped cans, kids, dog, contractors, etc. -- most never noticed by anyone -- not something I dwell on or fret about. At some point it will look a bit tired and I'll have the floors refinished, probably after 10 years of use.

I have always used the Bona mop on our very dark hardwood floors with great results. They look like new after 9 years, just the odd little scratch or ding. Nowadays my little buddy Bridget the Braava takes care of them. First she dusts then she either mops with a water damped mop or with Bona wood floor cleaner. They stay looking gorgeous with my only input being to put Bridget back on charge and then to turn her loose to do her work, in almost complete silence! We are planning to use hardwood again throughout our new home including, for the first time for me, in the kitchen. I know Bridget will keep the floors looking pristine.

Do not do a dark color.

I so agree with you: Dark vs. light woods come and go out of style, but if you go with a mid-tone, you're always "okay". Same thing with wide vs. narrow boards. Damage aside, floors aren't something that we can afford to change out, so they ought to be middle-of-the-road and basic.

As we age, rugs
definitely become a tripping hazard. No problem now, but I can see
having to consider that in the future.

My grandmother was very upset that we took seriously the doctor's instruction to remove tripping hazzards -- including throw rugs -- from her room. We got her a gel mat (is that the right word?), and while she wasn't happy with it, it was a compromise she could accept.

I have no rugs in my kitchen and it's fine. Even the ice that melted on the floor didn't harm the floors. As someone else said, they're floors, not fine antiques.

I remember we had just moved into our condo with our brand new floors. Two months after moving in we got our dog. DH was not happy the first couple of times DD peed on the new hardwood floors. LOL. Thankfully Nature's Miracle is a miracle. (It even took a chocolate stain out of my fabric chair!)

Here's a picture of our 5 year old floor in our kitchen (after it was cleaned with Bona)

My townhouse here came with engineered wood. I was a little leary but it's working out just fine. The only real issue is it's a very dark color and the chairs and barstools like to scratch it (I've since put felt pads on them all). My wife is the queen of the touch up pen and old english polish to fix those.

Next house however likely will have cork I have it in the wine cellar/tasting room now.

We have bamboo flooring throughout our small house, other than laundry and bathroom. In a small house, you really have to consider such things as the dogs' water bowl and kitty litter. Our Great Pyrenees can never drink without splattering water everywhere (our Maltese not so much...), so we put the food, water and kitty litter in the bathroom. Unconventional, but it works and keeps us on our toes with cleanup. Living on a farm, the bigger issue is mud tracked in by people and dogs. We have coir matts both outside and inside front and patio doors, and the dogs get their feet cleaned before coming in.

We use Bona as a cleaner, but I have found that it tends to leave streaks, so after cleaning I go over once with vinegar, which does the trick.

Fifteen years. Site finished oak. Poly coating. Westie dog until this year. Occasional grandkids. No rugs in Kitchen or Breakfast Room. Scuffs from chair legs (DH's chair!), but no other major blemishes.

You are not spilling on or cleaning the *wood*, it's the surface, in our case, the poly.

chisue, you commented about the scuffs coming from your DH's chair. Does he push the chair back, with his weight on it and then get up? I noticed this is what my DH and sons do, so they cause scuffs. I lift up my butt first and then push the chair back, so I'm never pushing the chair with my weight on it. Is this a male vs female thing? Maybe I need to pose the question on the decorating side and have a survey! :-)

We've always used felt pads on the bottom of our chairs and haven't had any scratches!

I use felt pads too, but they fall off after a while and some scratches can happen if you don't notice they fell off and someone pushes the chair.

We use additional glue along with the sticky-sided felt pads. I'm sorry, but I don't remember which one we ended up using---we tried a variety of different glues before we settled on the best one.

Yup! I't ONLY DH's chair, and of *course* he pushes back before rising! Men! I have the stick-on pads on almost every furniture leg in the house as my floors are largely bare except for wool 'orientals'.