HGTV's Jenn Todryk Shows Us How To Make Old Flooring Work In A Brand New Kitchen

Reviving old flooring instead of replacing it is a cost-effective way to make it work for a renovated space. For example, old hardwood floors can be brought back to life through various techniques like buffing, sealing, or the application of wood rejuvenating products. Restoring old flooring to its original appearance will make it shine like new.

Another way to make your floors stand out is by contrasting them or, alternately, drawing them together with other elements in the space. If you're redoing a kitchen, for instance, and want your floors to pop without actually doing any work on them, you'll need to match them with elements like the cabinets and the countertops.

HGTV host Jenn Todryk was faced with such a kitchen in the "No Demo Reno" episode "Son of the Year" — her client said she wanted to keep her kitchen floors, which were old but unique tan and textured tiles. Keeping them would save a lot of money — about $7,500 — so Jenn Todryk was ready to make it work. "Floors is a budget sucker," Todryk said. "It takes up a lot of the money, so that's good. It will be a little tricky to design around, I'm not gonna lie. ... I got my homework cut out for me." She decided on countertops as the right element to connect with the flooring.

The client wanted an all-white kitchen, excluding the floors, of course, so the challenge was finding the right countertops to match. "This is a tricky design because I'm having to work around speckled, yellowy-tan floors," Jenn Todryk said. "I'm looking for a countertop that has movement, and maybe has some tan in it, so the floors and the countertops vibe together." She went to the slab yard and asked for a quartz slab that had a white base with a cloudy appearance and no veins. She found one that was more on the gray side, but its cloudiness would fit well with the cloudiness of the tiles. You don't always have to match your kitchen countertops with your flooring, but this is a good example of when you should.

"I think she's gonna love these countertops, and I'm even happier with the slab that was installed because I feel like there's a lot [of] tan," said Jenn Todryk on "No Demo Reno." The finished product was very light gray counters with light clouding all over that added that texture and gave the space an elegant look, which was what the client wanted in her new kitchen.

"I went with something that was a little more cloudy," host Jenn Todryk explained to her client on "No Demo Reno." "It's got the grays, it's got the tans, it's got the creams, and I love it because it ties in with the floor beautifully." While all-white was the request, leaning into the gray base and the shades of the slab was still a good move because it toned down the sharp white of the cabinets that the client asked for, showing that you have to keep all the main elements in mind when making those style decisions.

The texture in the countertops connected with the texture on the tiles, and the color of the countertops matched the rest of the room but not exactly. The walls and white cabinets were a piercing shade of white while the countertops and backsplash were more muted and had texture. Flooring, counters, and cabinets are the main elements of a kitchen, but the walls and backsplash also play a big role. All five elements need to communicate and work together in design to achieve the desired result.