Your kitchen is your showcase, the heart of the home, and the place people come to judge your taste and living standards. If you are building a new home, or if you are doing a renovation, you really want to get the kitchen right. You can spend a lot of money on custom cabinets, and high-end appliances, and maybe a big chunk of granite too. But if you don’t get the flooring right, you are not going to get the effect you are looking for. The floor is the foundation, and the cabinets are the frame. All your decisions should have these two factors in mind. Everything else comes after. Here is a look at some of the flooring materials available.

• Tiles: This is the biggest category, there are so many tile types available now that it is hard to break them down into categories. Kitchen floor tiles can be ceramic, concrete, porcelain, stone, or glass. And they can look like almost anything now. You can even get ceramic tiles in the shape and appearance of wood planks, that look amazing and are so realistic that you must tap them to see if they’re wood or not. Tiles have been around for thousands of years, but in the last 20 years, new methods of production have exploded the options for patterns, shapes, and surfaces. You will be certain to find a look that will work for any application and you will benefit from the incredible durability of tiles. They can last a hundred years in some situations.
• Wood Flooring: It used to be that hardwood was incredibly expensive and it required specialists to install. Neither of those things are true anymore. Yes, you can spend a lot of money, and there are experts and craftsman in the field. But you do not have to go that route. Improvements in design have made flooring much easier to install. A lot of flooring now is essentially snap together products that are easily cut and assembled. And there is also an incredible variety available in colours and surfaces.
• Concrete: You may not like the idea of concrete, but perhaps you have not seen what can be done in the hands of expert finishers. Concrete has its own appeal and if you are going for the industrial look, it can’t be beat. Concrete is moving up in the world. Many elegant products are now being made with concrete, such as floor tiles and countertops. These days concrete can be patterned or coloured and because it is a one-piece product it creates a very complete and cohesive look.

Flooring is one of the most difficult decisions you will make when redoing your kitchen, you will likely be tempted by many options. Make sure that you have a good idea of what the other features are going to be like. Get samples if you can and try to see everything as a single statement. One of the best ways to do this is to find a kitchen designer, or a friend with good computer skills to model the kitchen for you. This could save you from second guessing or making the wrong choice.