My husband and I are ready to replace the nasty black and white checkerboard vinyl floor in our kitchen, but we're having a hard time getting a definitive answer: *Is it safe to install Pergo in the kitchen?*
We have a dark cherry colored Pergo in the living room and it would be nice to carry that into the kitchen and dining room. I'm hesitant, because we're only going to be in this house a few more years, and I don't want a stupid mistake to ruin our resell value in an already unstable market.
If you like it, and you're going to sell soon, do it. I know several people who did it, love it, and the wood-look is in style for kitchens so it should be fine for resell.
If you wait too long to sell, though, the wood floor look for kitchens will be out of style again (because there are practical issues) and you'll have prospective buyers figuring in what it takes to put something considered the fashion at that time. And IME it doesn't take much for people to change plans; you might be there longer than you think.
So all in all, I think the best thing to do is to do what you *want* and take whatever the applicable percautions are. If it's Pergo, put in the Pergo, and be careful about the Pergo, and enjoy the Pergo.
Banty (hates Pergo. Hates it in the kitchen, hates it in the living room. Hates it on a plate, hates it with a steak.)
Only sheet vinyl flooring and tile are the "perfect" kitchen floors from the standpoint of water resistance, but sometimes one or the other isn't practical for some reason. For us, tile would be way too hard and cold in our winters, and the sheet vinyl gets expensive for the good stuff since it's hard to DIY.
Previous owners laid down an Armstrong snap-together laminate floor in the kitchen that has held up rather well over 11+ years. It has resisted years of snow and rain brought in on people's boots and dogs' paws from the back door, which is really the primary entry for the house, and doesn't look all that bad. Where the wear is noticeable is at the seams where the boards are locked together; this stuff was glued back then, and in a couple of areas the glue failed and the boards separated a little. But I'm not complaining.
I hate the fake wood look of this product, though, so when we tear this stuff out in the spring (and put it back down on the basement laundry room floor: why throw it in the landfill if we can use it another way?), we're going to lay down a Shaw or Mannington tile laminate flooring design that ought to be easy to put down and look pretty good. The newer floorings have been treated for better moisture resistance, and they click together very tightly, so they're very good value for the money. Go for it, but check out the tile designs, too.
Worse, since it has a little bit of 'spring' to it. Although Pergo-lovers tell me that's part of its appeal - 'easy on the feet' and all that.
To me, put a decent sheet linoleum down if not tile. Wood, fake or real, doesn't belong on kitchen floors.
But a lot of people feel otherwise. I can't tell you how many people sung the praises of Pergo kitchen floors to me when I was making that decision.
Banty (a good porcelain tile, with dark grout, for me)
If you *do* decide to do it, here's one tip: if you have a builtin dishwasher, remove it and install the new floor all the way back into the dishwasher compartment. Then reinstall the dishwasher, adjusting the feet for the fact that the space is now about 3/8 inch less tall.
Some previous owner of our house installed laminate in the kitchen, but they were lazy and didn't take out the dishwasher. The laminate ended under the dishwasher door (and wasn't even cut straight across). This left the dishwasher in a depression, and it was a real pain to get out when we wanted to replace it. We needed to buy a slightly shorter than standard dishwasher in order for the new one to fit into the space.
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