Curious if Laminate Flooring is Good for Kitchens?

Curious if Laminate Flooring is Good for Kitchens?

When it comes to updating your kitchen, a vital aspect of home improvement is choosing what goes underfoot. Floors have to face up to spills, foot traffic, hastily-dropped knives, scurrying pets, and the odd out-of-control dinner party. Laminate flooring seems to pop up repeatedly as a serious contender, but is it durable enough to stack up for a Kiwi kitchen?

Let’s pull apart the myths, facts, pros, and cons of laminate in kitchens, with a nod to some of the innovations making it an even hotter pick today.

Laminate Explained

Before weighing laminate up for your kitchen, it helps to know what it actually is. Laminate is a multi-layer flooring product. Its backbone is a high-density fibreboard (HDF) core, topped with a printed image layer. This image can mimic the grains and hues of wood, stone, or whatever finish you fancy. The whole lot is topped with a clear protective layer known as the “wear layer”, designed to ward off scratches, stains, and dents.

Origins trace back to the late 1970s, but today’s options are light years ahead. Technology means you can get realistic timber looks for a fraction of hardwood’s cost—without sacrificing the style factor.

Kitchens: The Battlefield

The kitchen is usually the busiest room in any Kiwi home. From pre-breakfast crumbs to frantic after-school snack times, there’s not much your kitchen floor doesn’t see. The question is: can laminate flooring stand up to the job, or is it better reserved for bedrooms and hallways?

Advantages of Laminate Flooring in Kitchens

A quick look at the numbers across New Zealand shows that around 18% of new homes now include laminate flooring somewhere. Reasons for this push are pretty clear when you scan the main benefits:

• Affordable: It’s far cheaper than hardwood or porcelain tiles.
• Quick installation: Most laminate planks come with click-lock systems, meaning no glue, nails, or professional tricks needed for the average DIYer.
• Huge range of finishes: Oak, rimu, weathered barn wood—name a look, and there’s laminate to match.
• Easy to clean: A sweep and a damp mop are usually all it takes.

With the vast variety available in showrooms like FLOORCO’s Auckland warehouse, shoppers can mix and match to find the perfect fit for their kitchen’s personality.

Water Resistance Features

One of the most common worries about laminate is its relationship with moisture. Traditional laminate has struggled if exposed to large amounts of standing water. Swelling, warping, and bubbling were all too common several years ago.

Recent advances, however, have reset the landscape. Some products now feature:

• Waterproof coatings on all sides
• Tighter seams to limit ingress
• Wax or resin impregnated core layers

Let’s break down how this plays out in practice.

In most family kitchens, quick clean-up of splashes and spills is a normal part of life. Major floods or routinely soggy floors could still be a problem, but for regular households, modern laminate copes pretty well.

Durability of Laminate Flooring

Most kitchen renovators want something that still looks good five or even ten years down the track. Laminate’s reputation as a “disposable” floor is outdated. With attention to installation and care:

• Good quality planks rarely chip or dent
• Wear layers in the 8-12mm range survive a decade or more of daily foot traffic
• Most warranties range from 12 to 30 years, depending on the brand

Scratch resistance is better than what you’d find in most vinyls. Impact resistance also stacks up favourably compared with traditional hardwoods, especially in busy homes with kids and pets.

Varieties of Laminate Designs

One of laminate’s major drawcards lies in its looks. Sometimes even flooring professionals have to take a second glance.

Thanks to advances in imaging and texturing, you can pick from:

• Hyper-realistic wood grains (oak, ash, rimu, walnut, and more)
• Stone, slate, and concrete effects
• Patterns and colours that mimic bespoke or vintage tiles

Texture is pressed into the surface during manufacturing, creating a “registered emboss” that matches the printed detail. That means the knots you see aren’t just a photo—they actually feel like a knot underfoot. Floorboards and planks look and feel convincing, even next to real timber.

And with over 1,000 products in stock at major suppliers like FLOORCO, there’s no shortage of inspiration.

Installation Process of Laminate Floors

Tradies rate laminate as an “easy day at the office”, but it’s also straightforward for capable DIYers—especially with floating click-lock systems. You’ll need a level, dry substrate underneath:

• Concrete slab? Throw down a vapour barrier first.
• Tired wooden boards? Consider underlay for sound absorption and imperfect floors.

For kitchens, leave an expansion gap around the perimeter, as laminate needs room to move with changes in humidity and temperature.

One tip: lay planks perpendicular to windows to make the most of natural light and hide seams.

Easy Maintenance

Laminate is low-fuss. Regular sweeping and a damp mop will do it. Harsh chemicals and steam cleaners are unnecessary for most everyday messes. Avoid soaking the floor or leaving standing puddles. If you drop an orange juice, mop it up within a few minutes and you’ll be fine.

Addressing Kitchen Spills and Stains

Spills like wine, sauce, or even that surprise smoothie disaster typically wipe up without a trace. For scratches, a laminate repair paste in the right shade does the trick.

Considerations for High Traffic Areas

In busy family homes, floors get a workout. Scrambling pets, tiny toys, and the sharp tap of high heels will all cross your kitchen at some stage.

Laminate holds up far better than soft pine or even some engineered hardwoods. Dog claws and dropped utensils are unlikely to dig in, and the dense wear layer shrugs off most daily mishaps.

That said, dragging a fridge can still leave a scar—pop protective pads on big appliances for peace of mind.

Hot pots and heavy appliances, while laminate does a great job of resisting bumps and splatters, it’s wise not to treat it like a workbench. Scorch marks from hot pans dropped directly on the surface can happen, though it’s pretty rare. Place protective mats under benchtop appliances with rubber feet to avoid indentation over time.

Fridges and dishwashers typically sit well atop laminate, but during installation, some prefer to install cabinetry first, then slide flooring up to the edge. This makes replacing planks (one day down the line) a lot easier.

Environmental Impact of Laminate

Kiwis are increasingly savvy about the environmental impact of home materials. Laminate’s eco-credentials stack up well:

• Core usually made with recycled wood fibres
• Some brands offer formaldehyde-free adhesives
• Less raw timber used than solid hardwood
• No need for harsh chemical finishes

The main caveat: end-of-life recyclability is still limited, though several companies are improving on this front.

Affordability of Laminate Options

Nothing speaks louder than cold, hard numbers when you’re weighing up a renovation.

Here’s a quick comparison of average supply and installation costs per square metre in Auckland (estimates for 2024):

Laminate generally comes in comfortably at a third of the price of the fanciest engineered options.

Comparing Laminate with Other Flooring

No flooring type gets it all right. Laminate’s potential weak spots for Kiwi kitchens include:

• Poor resistance to flooding or prolonged wetness (though daily spills are fine)
• Can scratch if grit is left underfoot and scraped across the surface
• Impossible to sand and re-coat like solid wood
• Sometimes louder underfoot than vinyl, though thicker underlays help

If your kitchen has bi-folds that open straight onto the backyard, or little kids love to use the hose inside, consider a waterproof variant.

Enhancing Kitchens Aesthetics with Laminate Flooring

A lot of newer homes and renovations aim for seamless open-plan living, with kitchen, dining, and lounge rolled together. Laminate flooring is a practical way to create this flow, avoiding the “patchwork” look of different surfaces for every room. Colours and grain patterns can be matched across the whole zone, making spaces feel bigger and tidier.

With instant stock availability from local giants like FLOORCO, you’re rarely waiting long to start laying your floor—sometimes just a day or two from purchase to delivery.

Making Your Kitchen Work Harder

It’s easy to see why so many renovators are giving laminate flooring a hard look. It offers a sharp price point, a convincing look, and resilience for most day-to-day kitchen disasters. As technology keeps pushing forward, those old water-resistance and durability concerns matter less by the year.

If you’re weighing up your choices, take a visit to a large showroom and get hands-on with the latest samples. The difference between basic planks and next-gen options is instantly obvious to touch and sight.

Laminate may not solve every possible flooring challenge, but it’s a tougher, better-looking, and more kitchen-friendly option today than it’s ever been before.