The kitchen is an essential and beloved place in any home, where food can celebrate culture and create fond memories. So, it’s important to fashion the kitchen with just as much attention as the rest of the house. But choosing the right flooring and style will always be a little different from the other rooms. That’s because the kitchen is subjected to very different conditions. We have carefully researched if the kitchen floor should match the rest of your house.
Matching your kitchen floor with the rest of the house can create a nice consistency, but laying a different floor can make the kitchen a unique area with better durability. You have to consider both the floor’s color and the material. It is generally best to use flooring that can withstand the kitchen’s environment. Kitchens are prone to sharp tools, moisture buildup, and heat. This can negatively affect some flooring materials more than others, despite any added protection.
The kitchen can be a beautiful but dangerous place in the home, and you should plan your flooring with that in mind. While you can style the kitchen any way you want, keep reading to learn what colors and materials will give you the best balance and durability.
Should the kitchen and dining room have the same floor?
Cohesive
It is possible to let the kitchen and dining room have matching floors. This creates more of an open floor plan making the entire house feel larger. When different rooms are separated by different floor materials or colors, they can feel modular. This will usually make the house feel smaller, as it seems full of more rooms.
Aside from the material itself, you can also keep the same color for your kitchen and dining room floors. The dining room is all about enjoying your food, and so is the kitchen. This will create a smooth transition from cooking to eating together.
Unique, Yet Coordinated
But using a totally new kind of floor color or material can add a unique personality to your kitchen. That can be especially important for food enthusiasts and chefs. More style can also be great for casual use. For example, most people want to use an interior design in their kitchen that will appear brighter than the rest of the house. This makes the kitchen feel airy and special.
It’s the same reason that café curtains are used for kitchen windows. Natural light and increased brightness are commonly used in kitchens. It keeps them from feeling too busy or cramped. That can be very useful for a room with so many appliances and consistent traffic.
Functional Materials
And within bustling kitchens, with various uses and cooking implements, comes the potential for accidents. The floors you use for your dining room aren’t going to face water damage from leaking sinks or spills from cooking. You can read this post to learn how to protect kitchen cabinet doors from water damage.
The heat can rise when you cook on a stovetop, and plenty of sharp tools can ding hardwood floors. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to let your kitchen have its own floor material.
What is the best kitchen floor color?
The best floor color for your kitchen is white. This may not seem terribly interesting, but you can still use novel materials. White is the brightest neutral color. This means that you can brighten the kitchen as usual, but the floor can still agree with any neighboring flooring colors. The only drawback is that any stains and damage will be noticeable.
Shades of the Same Color
If you’re using the same floor material as your dining room, you can coordinate with that color. As long as you remain within the same family of colors, you can make the kitchen a shade or two brighter without losing that sense of balance.
However, if the dining room has hardwood, it may be best to leave its natural shade alone. All you would need is to apply a transparent finish so that the floor remains evenly colored from one room to the next. You can even use a finish that will add more gloss, so the kitchen can still shine a little more than its neighbors.
But remember that you don’t always need to match the kitchen with the rest of the house. You just have to keep your kitchen within the same style. For example, if your house has an industrial theme, then your kitchen should also have modern and minimalist colors.
In order to maintain balance in this way, you can coordinate all of the colors in your kitchen with each other. This is done using the relationships between the floor, countertops, cabinets, and table.
Should a kitchen floor be darker than countertops?
As a general rule, any floor should be darker than the furniture and fixtures above. Most rooms are designed to have darker floors, which transition towards brighter ceilings. This creates a visible base for everything inside the room to sit on.
However, a kitchen is unique because you can style it independently. The interior design just has to remain in the same theme as the house.
And kitchen floors are typically some shade of bright white. This is because you can allow your floor to be lighter when you want to highlight the fixtures and décor. Using a lighter floor will draw your attention upwards, where you will spend most of your time in a kitchen.
Outside of the kitchen, this would make large furniture pieces feel like they aren’t grounded at all. A white floor will increase the temperature of the room without using any distracting colors.
Should a kitchen floor be darker than cabinets?
Cabinets are always at eye level, and they command a lot more surface area than your countertops. That’s because you always have both base cabinets and wall cabinets.
Even though your kitchen cabinets are only used for storage, wall cabinets often rise all the way to the ceiling of the kitchen. This makes it important to choose the right color and shade for them. You can read this post to learn if your kitchen cabinets should reach the ceiling.
So, it is probably best if your floor is somewhat lighter than your cabinets. This will prevent your kitchen from feeling too gloomy. A dark floor could easily make dark cabinets feel overwhelming, even if they stay a shade or two apart.
It would be more ideal to draw the focus onto one or the other. You just have to decide between the floor or the cabinets. A dark floor and light cabinets will ground the room, while a bright floor and dark cabinets will create dramatic contrast.
Should your kitchen table match the floor?
It is rarely a good idea to use identical colors between furniture and flooring. That’s because the two will simply blend together, which can make a single color too overwhelming. This is also likely to cause a sense of redundancy. You would require some kind of area rug to form a visible bridge between the two.
There is a big difference between matching colors and coordinating them. The best thing you can do is to give your furniture and fixtures colors that will agree with the floor. Instead of using the floor’s color again, you should apply either neighboring or opposing colors for the kitchen table.
Can you mix different wood floors in a house?
It is absolutely possible to mix different wood floors in one home. You will often want to consider brighter wood for smaller rooms to make them appear larger. Conversely, you can use darker wood flooring to make larger rooms feel cozier. But even specialists, like Classic Floor Designs, agree that you should mix different types of wood floors.
You can use similar stains and wood species to maintain a sense of balance throughout the house. As a general rule, you should use up to three different kinds of wood tones between floors, furniture, and décor. Otherwise, the house will feel too busy. Keep that in mind when choosing different wood floors for various rooms.
Can you put a rug in your kitchen?
Area Rug Benefits
There is an equal share of benefits and drawbacks when you put an area rug in a kitchen. Area rugs are typically used to give hardwood floors some extra protection. This way, you can keep your house’s flooring totally consistent. But you won’t necessarily have to worry about some of the damage, like forgotten spills and scrapes on valuable hardwood.
Area rugs are also a great way to add color to your room while keeping a white base. This can introduce a smoother transition between bright floors and darker fixtures. The rug style can even help transform the kitchen's overall look since there are so many material types on the market.
Area Rug Drawbacks
Unfortunately, area rugs can get a little expensive themselves. And they have much less protection than flooring, which often has a top layer that resists damage. Even worse, many area rugs are made with fibers that might be flammable. That isn’t good for the only room that frequently uses fire.
Rug fibers can also absorb too many spills, resulting in moisture that will invite mold and mildew. Area rugs can also slip unless you purchase a rug pad. In other words, you’ll have to weigh the fashion with the function.
Summary
Restyling your kitchen can take a lot of time and effort. But any kitchen is worth the trouble when you’ll use it on a daily basis. There are some special rules for a kitchen, compared to other rooms in the house. But now you know what colors and materials will create working, appealing relationships. You can make informed decisions for your kitchen based on the style of the house and then the fixtures. So, you’ll be cooking again in no time!
