Hi, I'm Jerry Hankins, and I'm a certified kitchen designer. You know, when it's time to pick out your floor and counter top materials, it can be almost daunting, where to begin? Well, first thing you need to do is, have your cabinet sample. You need to have something to start, you just can't go out and pick out a floor and pick out a counter top. Go to your local home center, or your kitchen and bath dealer. Ask them for a sample of the cabinet that you'll be ordering, or that you have already ordered. Now, there's either going to be flooring of wood, we've got ceramic tiles, there' cork, vinyl, so many different options. We're just going to talk about tile and wood today. With cabinet sample in hand, you can go to your local home center and take a look at the various options that are or you, out there, and there are a lot. You're either going to have a sand and place floor, or a box floor, as I'll call it. Everything you see here, is a box floor, they're pre-sanded, pre-sealed, stained, everything, they're ready to go. So, find what you like, look at the different colors, the different shades. And when you have you cabinet sample in hand, and take at the different flooring options. You'll find something you'll like. So, with your cabinet door sample, that's how you want to view it. You want to see in the relationship that it will sit on your floor. You know, this looks great to me. Now, one of the challenges, is a stained wood cabinet. If you're going to do a stained wood floor, it can be very tricky. See, for me, it doesn't quite work, I think, it's best to have a contrast of wood floor to your cabinetry door. And conversely, if you had a light cabinet door, you want to go to a darker wood floor, o.k. So, we would just keep looking around, we'd find something we like, with that. We discussed a little bit about wood floors, let's talk about tile floors. There are basically three types of tile floor, we're going to have ceramic tile, porcelain tile and natural stone. Of the three, the porcelain will be the most durable tile, maybe not your most cost effective, versus ceramic. But still a good value for your investment. A ceramic tile is extremely hard, it comes in stone finishes, and it just has a lot of variety. And there's a lot out there, quite frankly. So, when you're out looking for your ceramic, just like, with the wood floor, take your wood sample and take a look to see what you like, o.k. And keep in mind, if you have a kitchen that has contrasting colors You might have a perimeter done in stain and the island in paint, or vice versa. You want to make sure you take both samples with you, so you can compare them against the floor. As I mentioned, the porcelain is going to be much more forgiving, extremely durable. Some other options you would have, would be a natural stone floor. You know, the look is great, I love it It'll be a little bit more money for both installation and material, requires sealing, o.k. So, this might not be the best option for a busy family, so be mindful about that. There's a lot to choose from, and you're going to have fun doing the selection. Now, lets talk about counter tops. Not unlike, when you're selecting your flooring, you want to take your cabinet door sample, when you're looking at counter tops as well. Go to your local home center, and whether you're looking at an acrylic material, laminate or stone. Have it with you and take a look at it against the actual vignette displays. They might even have small samples to choose from. And you want to look at your samples, and see how it works with both, your cabinet door and even your flooring. So, it's kind of doing all at the same time. And with our painted door, you see that it works great with this darker counter top. So, again, take your samples with you, when you look at all your different counter top options. In addition to color, they're also going to show you different edge details, to look at. There's OG's, simple E's edges, we've got beveled edges and such. So, take a look at counter material against your wood sample. And also look at edge details. I'm Jerry Hankins, good luck with your project.
home section
