If you are the kind of person who has to get up every speck of dust and dirt, than a good sheet vinyl would be a very excellent choice; once you've mopped and rinsed that surface, you know it is perfectly clean.

I understand your frustration with tile...grout is never 100% clean, no matter what you do to it. Finished wood is mostly clean when you're done cleaning it, but you do have the board separations to consider.

Wood flooring can be one of the easiest floor surfaces to clean and keep looking good. My mother's generation hated wood flooring and covered them up. That was mostly because the finish materials available did not produce easily cleanable and maintainable surfaces. State of the art film-forming and natural oil finishes are what are used today and do provide excellent surfaces to wood flooring. However, the sanding sand preparation of the wood has to be proper...no finish will perform well on a poorly sanded and prepared wood floor.

Also,...if you put an inexpensive wood floor finish on a wood floor, than it is likely that the floor will not look its best, will not be easy to clean and will not last. You must buy top shelf products. Know what you are buying! And make sure you get what you pay for, if you hire a professional to do the work.

I never get calls from customers complaining about a difficulty keeping their wood floors clean.

Thank you for the advice. That's very helpful. Wish I could just find someone who could get the grout cleanish, but I will replace it if I have to! Sounds like wood would be a good option.

Just use an epoxy grout colorant on the clean grout. It will seal it and color it at the same time. It's a lot of time on your hands and knees with the dispenser bottle, but it wil lmake your life much easier when you are done.

The wood to tile transition. The half arch going to the kitchen can be done. Most pros wont have the tools to make it on site which means they would outsource it to either a local mill or custom fab shop. Which can be pricey but i dont think it would be a deal breaker.

If you like the tile. Save the money of tearin it up and have the grout replaced. I do like the idea of the epoxy thing as suggested above. Id try that first and if you dont get the results youre looking for look into having it re-grouted. Just my two cents.

I can suggest you to replace them with "wood effect" porcelain stoneware tiles. They are simpler to clean and do not require much maintenance. They also give you a lot of choice about aestethic variations. If you want, check the link to see some examples.

I hope I've helped you, bye

Here is a link that might be useful: wood effect porcelain stoneware

Using a diamond blade, one could cut a diagonal line across the tile, either at the end of that handrail or somewhere between the handrail end and the start of the curve and remove a small portion of tile. This would tie the big room upper left to the small area lower right in your picture and you could use standard transition moldings.
As to your tile grout issue, you might look into whether you could hire someone to clean and seal the grout or remove it and regrout it.
Everything has it's drawbacks including wood. While it doesn't have grout and isn't prone to fracture cracks, it's more sensitive to water, humidity changes, dings and scratches. It should be recoated periodically. High wear areas will need recoating before low traffic areas. On the plus side, many wood floors can be refinished and you can change the color, unlike that pink tile someone thought looked great 15 years ago.

Thanks all for your help. We've considered all these things, including re-grouting. Sounds like re-grouting will be $$$. Aesthetically, I think some wood throughout will take this house from "eh" to "wow." Here's another pic from another viewpoint. This is before we moved in and painted, etc, but it still just seems weird having two flooring surfaces in such a small area. Now my husband is on board with all wood, and is willing to do the work himself, so I think there's no going back....

Funny that no one asked what is UNDER the tile you're removing. That will determine whether it is smart to even consider hardwood, engineered wood, or even laminate.

Good to hear you're happy. When buying pre-finished and you're installing in a kitchen, its always best to have a box or two for when the unfortunate dishwasher disaster. but in any case happy for you!

I have heard from those who have had plumbing disasters that wood will shrink back down. Relax a little. There is a reason wood floors are still in houses 100+years old.

Depends on the severity of the water damage. sometimes it will go back to normal, but then you get the cases where it doesnt, or it stains the wood. inwhich case its good to have an extra box you can use to patch the area and not have to worry about searching online or making a lot of calls trying to find a box with the same color/tint. each batch, even if its the same color can have a unique tint that would alter the appearance.

We are in a similar situation where we have tile in the kitchen and breakfast area, how did you remove the tiles? we have wood subfloor, are there chances of damaging the subfloor while removing the tile? And how long did it take to do the job yourself. For us replacing the tiles is more of budget issue, labor cost for tile removal is putting us back... Any tips or suggestion will help!

Thanks!