It all depends if you plan to sell the house in the future. It's always recommended to install one type of wood flooring which immediately raises the value of your home. But it's very common to have two different types of floors upstairs and downstairs as long as both types have the same grain characteristics. Doing so will make it easy for a new buyer to stain one floor to match the other if they desire. If thatÂs appealing to you, I would recommend installing Red Oak. Unlike Maple which has smooth and clean grain, Red oak has the same open grain characteristics as Brazilian Cherry and could be stained to match if someone wanted the whole house in one color. If the stairs are visible from the first floor, install Brazilian Cherry treads and risers or stain your existing ones in cherry color. You may also paint the risers in white, which really brings out the tone of the cherry on the treads. Hope that helpsÂ

I think you could do tile and wood and have them transition nicely from one to the other. Here's some picts I found of transitions. The first one shows a nice way to transition tile from room to room by running in different directions: If you want to do it all tile, you can definitely find a tile designer to help you. Tiles don't have to be square, they can be brick, random, etc. And they can design the rooms to fit together nicely. If you really want tile in your kitchen, I'd start at the tile store and let them help you. I understand your concern. If you went to my relative's house, you'd wonder what they were thinking with their flooring. They have an open floor plan with 6'x 5' slate entryway, berber in the cove on the left, cherry in the dining area on the right, fancy embossed carpeting in the family room in front which flows into the white vinyl floor in the kitchen which meets a back hallway with ivory vinyl which meets the cherry dining area and then meets a mudroom with grey indoor/outdoor carpeting. Seven different floors in one big room! The home is only 10 years old and was designed this way. DH and I were amazed when they had five different floors and 'bout lost it when they added the cherry. The embossed carpet put us over the top. Every time we go there we're hoping there's a new floor to look at ;-) We're really not that snobby. The variety just really peaked our interest. My husband had me paged at work when he saw they had a #7. He was so excited to tell me about it. lol The link below is a wood transition, but I could see an inlaid wood design flowing nicely into tile too. Here is a link that might be useful:

It's really hard to match stain color across wood species. It will take a lot of trial and error, and in all likelihood not match perfectly. A near match is often worse IMO. It might be better to go for a complimenting stain, like staining the stairs dark like the darker grains in the hardwood.

I am actually considering a wood wainscot rather than tile, especially if I decide to go with a patterned tile for the entire shower surround. If I only do one wall as an accent I will likely stick with subways for the other two walls and wainscot.