Natural light doesn't shine after dark. Make sure that you address the actual room lighting as well. And get a sample of the floor and place in a high traffic area of your home for a few days to see if you can live with the amount of dirt it shows. Some floors, like an oak, if they are medium dark, still don't show that much dirt because of the prominent grain. Go darker, or shinier, or choose a wood with very little grain (like a maple) and you will see every single thing, including sweaty footprints from people and pets.

Here's a shot of the Montauk Black slate floor in our kitchen.
As "hollysprings" said, be sure you have enough lighting for night time or for gloomy days.

This post was edited by willtv on Mon, Apr 15, 13 at 13:08

will tv, the photo didn't come through. would love to see.
thanks for your reiterating the need for good room lighting.

I went from white vinyl to a dark pergo type floor in our old house. I wanted to warm things up in that open concept house and also hide dirt. My big complaint afterwards was that I couldn't see the dirt to clean it and that bugged me. In this house we're going from white tile to a terrazzo type light/medium tile which will hide the dirt but not so much that I can't see it completely and will also preserve some lightness in the area.

The dark floors in the kitchen will work if your kitchen has reasonable amount of natural light, and a light color cabinetry for contrast.

Don't make the mistake of going with dark floors with dark finish cabinetry

We had a lighter floor with beautiful creamy-colored tiles that I chose 3 years ago when we built the house. We'd always intended to redo the kitchen after a few years so just went with standard builder grade cabinets, but I chose a nice tile and paid extra to have it laid on the diagonal thinking it would be our forever tile.

That was before I realized how it would show every speck of dirt and every drop of spilled coffee and every single dog hair. Lord how I grew to abhor that tile. Bottom line, we had it all removed and replaced with a darker tile in our recent reno.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the darker tile!! Wish I had realized this three years ago, would have saved a world of mess and dust, not to mention cost, if I'd just gone darker in the first place.

I was afraid I would regret it, but I love the dark tile I chose. I do wish it wasn't such a matte finish, but I still like it.

OurGC just finished installing our dark wood floors. I think they look GORGEOUS ! I had originally picked natural Hickory, but DH thought it was too much of a contrast with the cabinets and picked the dark. I am glad we did! As soon as I can figure out how to post pictures from my iPad I will put some up.
I guess, like everything else, you can listen to what everyone says and then go with what you like! After all, you are the one who is going to be living with it :)

My floors, when they are finally installed, will be a dark chestnut Sapele. It is a dark, warm brown but I wanted a lot of contrast between the cabs and the floor. If you pick what you love you should be fine!

I'm wondering about your comment that you have a cold house....I don't find tile floors to be the best flooring in a cold house unless you have radiant heat. Tile would make the house feel colder, I'm afraid. Have you thought about wood in those areas?

We had dark mocha stained wood in our old house. We had white cabinets too and the contrast was beautiful.

thank you for all of your comments. It is so helpful to get so many different perspectives. Probably won't get wood as DH doesn't want though I am going to bring a swatch home so that we can be convinced of our final choice which is probably going to be the dark floors. will decide soon. thanks for your help!