The kitchen in our apartments is traditionally the most inhabited place. Therefore, everyone is trying to make this room more comfortable, functional and spacious, at least visually. Kitchen flooring occupies a special place in the overall design and requires the closest attention. After all, it is the kitchen floor that serves as a path to the very heart of the hearth, where in the evenings in the family circle all the households gather, arrange friendly gatherings, a whole gamut of dizzying aromas arises and delicious dishes are prepared.
Due to the specific nature of this room, the floor covering for the kitchen must meet several important requirements. They are primarily due to the operational features of this epicenter of family comfort and, of course, aesthetic considerations. The flooring for the kitchen should be resistant to dynamic loads and mechanical damage, have good moisture-resistant qualities and inertness to the effects of aggressive chemicals, which are full of modern detergents. In addition, the kitchen floor should be non-slip, resistant to abrasion, various fumes and splashes.
With all the variety of modern finishing and facing materials, not every option is suitable for the kitchen floor. As a rule, either ceramic tiles, or laminate or linoleum are used as flooring for the kitchen. Of course, you can resort to a more economical option, which is the hinge of old parquet. Especially considering the high environmental friendliness of wood.
The term “floorboard hingeing” conceals a complex and rather laborious set of restoration works to give the floor covering (parquet) a clean, aesthetically attractive and even surface. But in terms of its performance and durability, this option is significantly inferior to the three of the above.
Such a floor covering for the kitchen, such as linoleum, is now represented on the market by a huge mass of all kinds of materials: fabric, synthetic, natural, combined, single and multilayer, containing various pigments and plasticizers, having a special protective coating and without it. This list can be continued for a very long time, and ever new materials and their combinations are constantly appearing.
Some expensive types of linoleum are made on the basis of natural oils, wax, wood flour and limestone. This type of coating, having absolute environmental cleanliness and extremely high resistance to various types of contaminants (including grease), is able to maintain its qualities for several decades. With its unique bactericidal properties, natural linoleum is even recommended for use in medical and child care facilities. True, this option is not cheap.
A more democratic type of kitchen floor can be synthetic linoleum made of fiberglass. Although it is a completely chemical product, but, according to the requirements of GOST, its negative impact on the body is absolutely excluded. The palette of all kinds of colors of synthetic linoleum is so vastly varied that choosing the right tones for any style is not the slightest difficulty.
The thickness of this type of flooring should be selected in accordance with the individual operating conditions of the kitchen and the type of furniture installed in it. For example, the more used surface-damaging mechanisms (furniture wheels, etc.), the thicker linoleum should be. In standard operation, a synthetic coating with an average level of resistance that can withstand distributed mechanical loads is quite suitable. However, dents may remain on it, for example, from heels. To exclude the very possibility of such troubles, it is advisable to still choose a coating of high resistance.
Laminate is the most modern, beautiful and practical type of kitchen flooring. But it is too demanding on the degree of flatness of the surface. Therefore, the laminate flooring requires a concrete screed that gives perfect flatness to the floor plane. Otherwise, it is quite convenient. Laminate assembly is extremely simple. For all its environmental safety, this type of coating is subject to some degree of deformation, which implies some caution in its operation.
But the unconditionally recognized leader among materials for the kitchen floor is ceramic tile, which has phenomenal performance, excellent aesthetics and durability. Its advantages can be listed for a very long time. It has only one drawback - it is almost impossible to change the tile, since it is mounted on a special glue, after drying of which the surface is a solid monolith. But there is a positive point in this. Using ceramics as a floor covering, you can permanently get rid of a headache about changing the kitchen floor.