You have a few more problems than some missing tiles. When trenching such as yours, the exposed sides of the old slab should have been drilled and pegged with rebar from one side to the other to help reduce the chance one side will rise or fall different than the other. Was this done in your case? If there is no rebar, the edges of the slab will need to be treated as a cold joint in which case you'd need a grout joint / expansion joint above each side of the trench. Then comes the need to remove more tiles in order to install a crack isolation membrane (or similar) to reduce the chance of in plane movement in the future. This will make for some ugly grout joints. Can I interest you in some nice carpeting?

newkitchen10 - I don't want to hijack storklady's flooring thread, so I'll send you an email with a few more pics and some details. The picture posted here was not a 'finished' picture, but it showed more of the floor. But, yes, we love our banquette! There are some really pretty floors posted here...I especially love allison0704's floor. We had put ours in 5 1/2 years BEFORE we redid the kitchen, and since it went through the entry, breakfast, office area, family room and dining room, we kept it and just filled in where our cabinet footprint changed. Luckily, the tile store where we bought it could still get it. A very nice man from the store drove 2 hours to the distributor and went in and hand-picked tiles that matched one of my extras from 5 years before! AND he did it TWICE, because our contractor changed his mind and thought we might need 2 more boxes! Amazingly helpful.

This is just my humble opinion, but a lot of the wood-look porcelain/ceramic tiles that I've seen look better quality than some of the cheapo engineered or laminate "wood" floors out there. And after a year or two, I imagine the quality of the better tiles is even more evident compared worn low-end engineered or laminate flooring. Whether you're talking about tiles or engineered wood, quality makes a huge difference. I love the more unusual looks that wood-look tiles can pull off - looks that would be hard to achieve with real wood like driftwood, etc. For example - That would be a low-maintenance rustic chic look for my busy family lifestyle. When I had ceramic tile in the kitchen, I generally found that wearing "house" flip-flops eased the hardness for my feet. We just extended top-nailed site finished oak planks into our kitchen because we have an open concept living space. Love the look but it was super expensive and I am dreading the fussing at the kids (and myself) that will be required to keep it in decent condition. High traffic areas of the new hardwood were down to bare wood after 12 years before refinishing. I think a lot of flooring looks that are popular now will look dated in a decade - including engineered wood, etc. My grey kitchen tiles weren't too bad, but the 12"x12" shape looked dated after 10 years. So, realistically, plan what will work for you for the next decade, then if you're lucky that your choices work out for longer than that, it's a bonus :) . Here is a link that might be useful: Mission Stone Tile

Our Florim luxury porcelain tiles - seen here in the design 'Marfil Honed' with warm caramel and beige tones. Suitable for both floors and walls, its high stress resistance makes it great for even high-traffic areas. Find out more: http://www.egmcorp.com/florim/marfil-honed