I've had wooden kitchen floors for nearly two decades. Mine are solid wood, not engineered. They are a lot of work. I'd prefer the cleanliness of tile, but it would mean a big change in a lot of ways.

Area rugs - -we have used them from time to time even with our wood floors. It's a nice visual touch but its impossible to keep them in place if you have kids or busy pets.

I think there are so many choices in tile that you really can't date your design, unless you choose some super trendy color or material that's overdone at the moment (travertine? anything limestone looking or tumbled in tan/beige/stone?).

I wouldn't personally ever have tile floors in my kitchen/hallway again, since it was an absolute beast to keep the grout looking clean and not grungy, and it was very hard and cold on my feet and legs. If these things aren't a consideration, go for it! There are some truly gorgeous patterns and colors in tile out there.

We are putting travertine tile in our remodel kitchen / dining room. While I too like the look of wood, our aging house has ocassional water disasters so I nixed the wood idea. I think the traverinte will look wonderful. The natural markings of the stone I think will fit well with our charry cabinets and beadboard.

No, you are not off base. I live in MN lake country and am putting in tile in all living areas except the media room. We have 2 dogs and doggie doors and that mean lots of wet during spring thaw. Also, we have lots of sand coming in with all our visitors from our beach. It has already destroyed the laminate floors the former owner put in. However, we are putting in radiant heat -- hey it is MN and the winters are COLD!

Where in the US do you live? In the SW tile is nearly standard. Tile is easier to care for than the wood floors I had in the past.

We are doing porcelain tile in the kitchen and pergo brazilian cherry in the sunroom.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Where do you live? If you're somewhere like Florida, it's normal. If you live in a cold climate, I wouldn't do it without putting heating under the floors even if you don't mind the temperature. The larger expanse of tile you have, the cooler your house is going to feel.

Be aware that if you have a raised floor (rather than slab) the tile is going to be "harder" than the wood. And because of the weight you might need to supplement the joists and/or subfloor. It's no big deal, but something to prepare for.

If you use large, heavy rugs with good, non-skid pads underneath, they should stay put pretty well, though of course, as Plumeria said, running small beings can push them around, and it is possible to trip. But rugs also help to keep the room warmer.

The way to keep it from looking cold, however, is to choose your tiles well. Light, neutral faux-stone tiles will look colder than darker, more colorful, and more patterned tiles.

It depends on the look you're going for. You could put in a Moroccan style, colorful interlocking pattern, a Mexican style bright, or something more like pavers. Terra cotta, for instance, doesn't look cold. In some parts of the country Saltillo tiles increase your appraisal because they're so desirable, but yet are quite inexpensive. And they make some great repros of antique French pavers. These are large, rectangular and pink or peach. Traditional for kitchens as well as whole entry floors. Lots of character, and a warm inviting look. Not so great for bare feet, though.

Although many people are going to wood, I really don't get it. Wood in ANY area that has water makes no sense to me. The kitchen, bathroom-- one house I'm about to start on tuesday, even the laundry room was originally going to be hardwood (I talked him out of it)! All it takes is one leak, and the wood's ruined.

Thanks for all the input. I am in sunny Colorado - not up in the mountains - but we are out in the country and tracked in dirt, grease and mud will be a problem. I'm looking at taupe colored tile with grayish undertones - going for a contemporary sort of polished cement look. If I go with this much tile I will use the additive to the grout that makes it pretty much bullit proof as far as staining and dirt go, I think it would be worth the extra cost.

I have written on multiple posts about how much I love my chiseled edge, modular pattern travertine by Florida Tile (Pietra Art). Do a search if you want to see photos, etc.

We put in at least 650 sq ft of it and we live in New England. I disagree that the tile makes our home feel colder. We have a well insulated home and we are doing fine. I looked into radiant heat and realized that you have to heat all of that mass before the heat starts to radiate, so you end up burning more fuel. I didn't think it made any sense in our situation.

We are doing a kitchen/family room area and tried to decide between tile or wood -- I want it all to be the same surface. I originally wanted tile (Daltile continental slate), but ended up choosing hardwood. I'm in the northeast so thought the tile in the family room would not appeal as much as hardwood for resale (since I was getting a lot of "really??!" when I mentioned to people that I was thinking of tiling the family room as well). Also did not have room in the budget for underfloor heat, and was concerned the tile would be too cold. So we're going with hardwood and hoping for no disasters in the kitchen plumbing-wise. FYI,if you're concerned about weight and flexing in the floor, I think a ceramic/porcelain tile is more forgiving (and lighter weight) than a natural stone (slate or travertine), but I'm not an expert!

If I go with this much tile I will use the additive to the grout that makes it pretty much bullit proof as far as staining and dirt go, I think it would be worth the extra cost.

What will go alot further is using a grout with medium to darker colored tones. No matter what you put in the grout, it'll age, show traffic patterns, and sooner or later, you'll see some slight staining. The darker colored grouts will hide that so much better than the lighter tones.

If you're looking for a polished cement look, have you considered getting polished cement? Or one of the new polymerized concretes? You can embed heating in that too, though I guess it would be harder to dig up a piece if it went bad. I've seen some really gorgeous ones.

We have hardwood floors in most of the house, including the kitchen. I love them. The main/guest bath was just remodeled and now has marble tile with a heated underlayment. We step from the warm tile floor onto the "cold" hardwood floor in the hallway. Those heating underlayments are a wonder. A friend of mine has marble floors in her newly remodeled kitchen (and most of the public areas). Marble tile with the "chill off" feels wonderful!

We have porcleain tile iin our kitchen and are installing brazilian teak in our adjoining sunroom. I love that I can wipe down the tile in the kitchen with a quick mop.

Here is a link that might be useful:

WE are doing all porcelain tile throughout the entire house but then again, I live in So. Florida and have 3 small dogs.

Living in Arizona. We have tile, in the kitchen, family room, and powder room. Hardwood in the front room, stairs and up stairs. We had hard wood, in our family room. Have a pool, with kid's tracking in but really did not have any problem's with it. Just had a rug down. I, like both wood, and tile. Tile is a little more work with the grout. I, do not think tile look's cold at all. Your cabinet's, and other thing's help to warm it up. sharaz

Friends of mine put tile throughout their entire home. Bedrooms included. This was in Texas so not as unusual as it would be in colder climes. If you want to do all tile, you should do it. She finds it very easy to keep clean with three kiddos and a large, bumptious lab. I would stay away from lots of tiles if you have any joint issues in your legs. I have bad knees. Standing on tile for any length of time hurts.

I do think it is very much a regional thing as others have said. I just read something a Charlotte, NC real estate agent wrote and she said that 75-80% of the homes in the Charlotte area opt for hardwood floors in the kitchen. Having grown up and lived in NC all my life, I'll have to say that I have never seen a kitchen with tile floors, linoleum, yes, but not tile. Almost every house I've been in has hardwood floors. I have seen tile in a condo and I have seen tile used in sunrooms and occasionally foyers. Perhaps in Colorado tile is used more often. My guess is it is since it is not all that far from the "southwest" where surely tile is the norm. I would suggest you try standing on tile for long periods of time before you commit to it. Like others have mentioned above, standing on tile can be a painful experience.

The concrete look tiles sounds like it would really work for you. I have seen some nice ones here in Texas where I live. One of the things that helps is to have the grout line as small as possible. My Saltillo is set in portland cement with 3/4" grout lines which are very light gray. It's not fun to clean, but I do like the tile. I use a cushioned floor mat in the prep area where I stand for an extended time.

Radiant floor heating works really well in sunny, yet cold areas like yours so you might want to at least look into it.

I hate my wood floor in the kitchen. Granted, it probably wasn't very nice oak to begin with *and* it's also right off the patio so there's a lot of dirty boots.

But there were still some mighty big worn patches when we moved in, and here we are ten years after having them refinished and they look horrible. They're worn through in the same high traffic areas, not to mention all the scratches and gouges my kids put in the floor dragging the bar stools (and various other things) around.

It's my kitchen, though - constantly used, wet, busy, and the only way to get into the back yard. The wood in the hall is still fine, so I know it's just the level of usage and abuse.

Personally, I'm planning on tile for the kitchen/family room remodel. Since I live in Seattle, we're planning on old school electric radiant heat for at least some portion of it. And as my kids (and their cousins) have had stomach flu the last few weeks, I can't wait to have floors I can thoroughly scrub and bleach. ;-) Good luck!

I'm in the northeast. My original kitchen had solid oak floors, but a leaking refrigerator damaged them pretty badly.

I'm planning to go with tile in the new kitchen, mostly because I'm a really messy person and the floors will just end up getting wet.

"All it takes is one leak, and the wood's ruined."

Not really.

Folks do not want to actually wait for the floor to dry out though.

A house I did other work on recently blew out a cheap plastic toilet fill house in a second floor bathroom.

It filled a first floor hallway light fixture with water (darn near boiling hot from the three 60 watt bulbs).

After removing the fixture and setting up some fans it took about 3 weeks for the 1920s cypress floor to return to its previous state.

Tincture of time works for wood floors that get wet.

I have had wood floors in every kitchen for the past 40+ years, and never had any real problems.

Tile is to hard to stand on for very long.

We're also looking at more contemporary looking tile.

Have you looked at the Gardenia Orchidea Sable? It's probably not as taupe as you want, but DH and I both thought it resembled stained cement. I'm a noob at tile shopping, but to us it looked contemporary, sturdy, and fairly non-skid.

The Daltile Vibe and Kimono are the other really contemporary/sturdy/non-skid tiles we've seen, though again, the color might not be what you're looking for. They both have a really cool texture component, though I don't know if you can really see it online.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to Gardenia Sable

I've seen that in some friends homes in the southwest and I loved it. That may be because it's not common where I am (MN) and I love things that aren't so commonplace. We have a tile floor throughout our lower level family room and I love it. We come in from the garage there and also have a wood burning stove in that room and it's wonderfully impervious to all the wear and tear. The floor is 37 years old and it's like new. That is one of the things that made me replace the wood floors in my kitchen with tile.

Our heat ducts run under the floor so that helps with the temperature of the floor. We do not have radiant in floor heat. However when we have the wood stove burning in the winter the entire floor heats up from that and it's delightfully toasty.

We just put porcelain tile in our kitchen, foyer, mudroom and laundry room. I thought about doing the dining and living room in tile as well because of the durability of it. We ended up putting Brazilian Cherry hardwood in those areas. I will say though, that I am glad that I didn't do the tile throughout. While I love my tiles appearance and ease of cleaning....my feet hurt *all the time*. And I know people speak of how hard tile is but I really didn't think it would affect me, but it has. So I now have to wear cushiony slippers in the house which help a little. I keep hoping I will "toughen up" and get used to it. The tile has been down for about a month. Oh and by the way.....I am only in my 30's. Wondering how bad my feet will hurt in 20 more years LOL :)