Kitchen Floor Decision

[House_BuhBooLis]

My vinyl tile is coming up!

Under it is nailed down plywood.

Under that is wood floors of unknown condition.

My original idea was to pull it all up and just refinish the wood floor. It is taking quite a bit of work to get the vinyl up and likely quite a bit more to get the plywood up (its under the cabinets).

Is it worth it? Are wood floors even a good idea in the kitchen? What if the wood floors are in awful shape...they will definitely be full of nail holes...should I just keep the plywood down and put something else on top? Or push through for the wood floors.

[Willa]

I am faced with the same decision as you, but in my bathroom.

It feels like a 50/50 gamble. I don't know what might be waiting for me under the plywood subfloor, as I am 90% sure some plumbing was moved around. If I tear it all up and the original floor is in disastrous condition, then I will have to get a new plywood subfloor put down plus some kind of flooring material on top. The current floor is unattractive and the wrong color so I would really like it to go. What would replace it is another question.

If the wood is okay then I can paint it (it was probably originally painted - 2nd floor of a modest house) or strip it.

Do you have a basement below your kitchen ? If it is unfinished, you can probably tell if there have been patches, replaced sections, etc.

Do you have a budget for replacement if the floor is too rough to be saved ?

If the floor is salvageable, what are your plans for it - ie sand then poly or ???

Personally I think a wood floor in a kitchen looks good, and is no more or less sanitary than other types of flooring. A shellac and wax finish is not recommended for areas that have the potential to be wet, like bathrooms and kitchens.

[House_BuhBooLis]

Do you have a basement below your kitchen ? If it is unfinished, you can probably tell if there have been patches, replaced sections, etc.

Do you have a budget for replacement if the floor is too rough to be saved ?

If the floor is salvageable, what are your plans for it - ie sand then poly or ???

Personally I think a wood floor in a kitchen looks good, and is no more or less sanitary than other types of flooring. A shellac and wax finish is not recommended for areas that have the potential to be wet, like bathrooms and kitchens.

Good to know I'm not alone! We have some unfinished and some drop ceiling in the basement...so probably reasonable to check it out, thanks for the suggestion!

If they were salvageable, yeah, I would sand and poly or stain. And yes, we could afford replacement floors, but just sanding/staining would be cheapest, minus the labor (that would be ours!).

[SkipW]

In all of the changes I have made at our house, my thinking is to go for the old original stuff. If it is OK shape, then great! If not, then I replace with what was the second choice. I am a firm believer also in the fact that you may find some issues you would have overlooked if you hadn't taken the plunge and it is best to find then now, while in construction mode, than later in finishing mode.

[mjt]

Wood floors are a fine idea in a kitchen.

Tile or stone is very hard - anything that drops is sure to break and standing on it for long periods (i.e., cooking) is tiring.

[Gothichome]

Bubooliz, I think you have to go back to the original. If for no other reason you'll know what your dealing with. The other benefit is you eliminate the build up of floor hight. If,once you get down to the original you don't like what you see, or not able to bring it back, your choices for new flooring are wide open. If you do descide to resurface have a close look at cork flooring, it's late Victorian period correct, can be designed with fancy boarders and the such and is available at most good flooring shops.
Like you, we will have too make the same decision in the not so distant future.

[Kashka-Kat]

I think I wrote elsewhere about this...? Ive pulled up about 3 or 4 such floors in my lifetime and they all had deteriorated wood around the kitchen sink area - ranging from rotted clear thru and replaced with plywood to just discolored &blackened. If its not so bad then you could either replace those strips that are bad, or paint the floor, or if youre cereative apply some sort of weathered stain wood to entire floor - that latter would be quite fashionable and still let you enjoy the grain and the look of wood. If you google painted kitchen floors there are some that look quite beautiful I think. Its a a nice vintage look - I think like the solid color ones better because you can see the texture of the wood more. I have not tried any of these but have read that some porch floor paints incl new generation of epoxy paint can be quite durable and even somewhat waterproof

[1918ColonialRevival]

I'd pull up everything just to see what I was dealing with underneath. You might get a pleasant surprise.

If you find wood, it may have never been finished. In the 1910s and 1920s, the era when bungalows were king, most kitchens were outfitted with either unglazed ceramic tile or thick linoleum. The wood was usually the base layer. My kitchen still has the 1980s vinyl for now (the exact pattern in the Huxtable kitchen on the Cosby Show), but I pulled it up in a corner to find that there is tile set into a cement bed underneath. It is likely original to the house. I suspect it's not in good condition though, as the kitchen has been remodeled and re-configured at least four times in the house's life.

If you decide to go the finished wood route, I'd use Waterlox or a similar finish that will hold up to moisture and spills associated with a kitchen. I've never been a fan of poly in an old house. Makes the floors look too much like a boat deck to me, but to each his own.

[House_BuhBooLis]

Thanks everyone!

Your encouragement has convinced us to go forward with the plywood removal! I poked around the basement ceiling and saw nothing crazy.

I am 100% sure the current layout of the kitchen in not original and through our demolition, this is even more apparent. In front of the door (closest to front of the photo below) there was just the plywood and it came up and looks pretty good, except two rows of shiny exposed nails (used to put the floor down, I guess). The middle of the kitchen however did contain an extra layer of ceramic tile (I hope ceramic, appears ceramic--just solid white, coming up in tiny little pieces) over what looks like unfinished hard wood floors (1918revival, you were spot on!). So that has been more troublesome to get up.

I hope the ceramic doesn't continue throughout the entire kitchen...when we redid the floor in the downstairs bathroom (which I think use to be part of the kitchen) there was some (two different floor types) of this same vinyl tile, and it didn't have the ceramic, so...here's hoping.

There are SO MANY nails though...I think in the end we might end up painting it, but either way I am happy with the decision to take up the plywood (probably will take a few more weekends though...).



A small section I sanded

[mjt]

Looks pretty good! It's similar to our back hall.

We ended up re-finishing the floors in our entire house, except for two rooms. In each of those we'd removed vinyl tile that had tested positive for asbestos. In one room it looked like someone ad tried to stop the floor from squeaking by used thousands of framing nails. In the other, something square and large must have sat in the middle of the room for a long time. No matter what we tried we couldn't remove the adhesive...

Because they are bedrooms, both are now carpeted...