Also one other choice that goes into picking your wood floors is the style: strips, planks, parquet, or hand scrapped and if you want to get pre-finished wood flooring or if you want to try your hand with the unfinished style. I personally would recommend the pre-finished style because it saves you from having to finish them yourself which unless you know what you are doing can save you a load of time and money.
When it comes to strips, planks, parquet, or hand-scrapped it is person preference more then anything else. Planks tend to be the wider of the two which will give you a more spacious look. Parquet wood floors are assembled from individual piece of wood flooring and when done correctly will leave you with a very unique and impressive wood floor. The last choice hand-scrapped has a more rustic look to it which is great if that is the look you are going for or if you plan on some minor damage because it hides scraps, cut, and other types of damage better then the other three choices.
Wood flooring is obviously a potential fire hazard because it is made of wood and wood burns so make sure that whatever wood flooring you purchase has been treated to help retard a fire in the event that you are unfortunate enough to have it happen to you. Wood is also very susceptible to water damage and needs to be sealed correctly to ensure that you don't damage your floors the first time you spill something on them. Even with the best type of sealant if you allow water to sit on top of your wooden floors it is going to damage them so I always recommend a mat where water is a potential issue along with making sure that any liquid spill is wiped up immediately.
Pros:
-Hardwood flooring gives kitchen a type of warmth unlike any other flooring material.
-Will last a lifetime when properly installed and maintained
Downsides of Wood Flooring:
-Is very prone to water and fire damage
As far as cost goes hardwood has a pretty wide range because of the number of choices that are available to you as the consumer. A typically wood kitchen floor will run you anywhere from $4-12 depending on the different types of options you pick. Wood flooring today is very easy to install so unless you are going for a truly unique look you can probably avoid the extra cost associated with labor and make it a DIY project.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com
