Flooring conundrum DIY help needed

[Mattzlaff]

Well I thought it was time to upgrade my flooring. However I may have a not so unique problem but I am entirely uncreative and artsy.

My 1100 sqr ft bungalow has the whole upstairs vice bathrooms the same "soft" hardwood planks. I have a couple dogs and it's taken a beating I want to upgrade the flooring to vinyl plank. This presents me with a few challenges I don't know much about.
1. The cabinets sit on top of the existing flooring

2. I think having same vinyl plank through-out the whole floor plan again may be a little drab, more so in the kitchen. I don't mind all the rooms being the same but the kitchen and the same vinyl don't sit well with me.

3. To do the kitchen, the counter top/cabinets end past the wall opposite so the flooring would look weird to me if I put in some vinyl tile or other flooring at an angle across from the wall to where the countertop ends.

Basically I'm asking for design help with 2 different floors and some help figuring out what to do with the flooring up to the cabinets. See attachment of not to scale floor plan.

Any help is appreciated

[hoosier]

As far as the cabinets go, just remove the toe kick covers on your cabinets, floor right up to the cabinets, then replace the toe kicks.  This is common, if not standard, practice.

If you want your kitchen to have a different floor than the rest of the house I'd come straight off that peninsula about half the distance to the wall, then angle to the wall to create a separate kitchen space.  Make a border with your "rest of the house" floor for the transition.

[lthenderson]

My 1100 sqr ft bungalow has the whole upstairs vice bathrooms the same "soft" hardwood planks. I have a couple dogs and it's taken a beating I want to upgrade the flooring to vinyl plank.

In my experience, vinyl plank wears a lot worse than hardwood floors especially with dogs if you are referring to scratches. (Urine is a different story.) Vinyl planks also have the added downside that they can't be refinished to get rid of the scratches like hardwood can. Also, leaving heavy pieces of furniture in place for long periods of time can dent vinyl planking permanently.

[KarefulKactus15]

My 1100 sqr ft bungalow has the whole upstairs vice bathrooms the same "soft" hardwood planks. I have a couple dogs and it's taken a beating I want to upgrade the flooring to vinyl plank.

In my experience, vinyl plank wears a lot worse than hardwood floors especially with dogs if you are referring to scratches. (Urine is a different story.) Vinyl planks also have the added downside that they can't be refinished to get rid of the scratches like hardwood can. Also, leaving heavy pieces of furniture in place for long periods of time can dent vinyl planking permanently.

Ive had good luck with the engineered wood floors.     Take a screw driver with you and really give the samples hell.  Thats how I picked my floors.  One of them wouldnt scratch... thats the one I picked

[Mattzlaff]

I will take the screw driver method with me. Havent been to any flooring stores yet but I plan to do it on days off this weekend thanks for the input.

[lthenderson]

I will take the screw driver method with me. Havent been to any flooring stores yet but I plan to do it on days off this weekend thanks for the input.

Be forewarned that while the screw driver method might provide some feedback on how easily flooring scratches (I would rather see how it ranks on the Janka scale), it won't tell you how susceptible it is to denting by leaving a heavy object sitting on it for a length of time. Dressers with feet, kitchen tables and beds are the ones I see denting vinyl planking with time and pressure.

[Mattzlaff]

I have seen a bit on the janka nimber a few months ago when I was doing my initial look at what I might need. I'll keep that in mind too. currently don't have a lot of heavy furniture in the house.