Which of the wood species are you going with. I like the Cognac color and I seem to love the Yellow Birch and the Maple Mirage on your board in the semi-gloss. What size width are you planning to go with?

The tile is very nice and looks good with your choices in my opinion.

Hi Lynn-- we are going with Cognac Maple-- we are putting it in the foyer, living room and dining room... trying to decide about kitchen... so confused- i love the maple and want to put it in the kitchen but practicality (of water stains, kids, etc tells me i should do tile??) now i'm trying to pick tile and granite..

oh and 3 1/4 wide!

Bump! What color tile would you recco

Suzienj - I saw your post on the home building forum and noticed that you aren't getting many responses so I thought I'd chime in. Although I'm sure the tile you've selected is nice (pictures were a bit too small for me to see well), I would much prefer hardwoods in the kitchen over tile. I don't like the shatter factor assocated with tile and also find tile to be very cool and hard for my feet and back. I know it depends which part of the country you are in, but in my area wood floor are typically preferable in the kitchen over tile. I've actually found it harder to keep hardwoods clean in the foyer over the kitchen. At our old house, we even had our dw flood onto our oak floors 2x and they were still fine. Sorry to complicate the decision, but just my honest opinion.

If DH isn't willing to reconsider putting hardwoods in the kitchen, then can you make the pictures any bigger? :)

I am also a fan of wood in kitchens. That being said, the tile looks pretty nice. If you made the pix bigger, it might help.

I would also recommend going with hardwood flooring. I used to live on the west coast and we always had tile. It's so common there, I didn't really think twice about it, but I also always hated the grout issues and trying to keep it clean was a PITA. After moving to Michigan, we bought a fixer and decided to install wood throughout the first floor. On the advise of friends, we also installed it in our kitchen and I LOVE it. Although it's just my DH & I, the friend who recommended it has 7 kids ages 7-19 and 2 dogs. Her's is the busiest household I've ever seen! And her floor, an oak is doing fine.

Wear and tear is important, but comfort should also be something to consider. If you spend any amount of time in the kitchen, you'll immediately notice how the wood is so much easier on your legs and feet. To protect ours from water, I have a rug in front of the sink.

Also, after time, those scratches your DH is concerned about will make a sort of "lived in" patina that will help give the room some character and IMHO it will work better with the style you are going with in your kitchen. Another positive about wood is that when you want to freshen things up, you just sand and refinish them. The 3/4 inch planks have a VERY long life because you can do this several times before they need to be replaced. I would really think twice about the tile, after having both I can honestly say, there's really just no comparison.

The wood we are getting (Mirage, cognac MAPLE-- can not be refinished to the same color from what i understand) thats what concerns us with the kitchen...

But now i'm thinking i want to go back to my original idea-- a golden tile with golden granite?? anyone have a white kitchen with those colors?

I like the tile. I think it ties together with the cabs and wood nicely. That said, I had tile in my last house in the kitchen. I really like it even though it is cold but four of them ended up with cracks. I don't know if someone in the house dropped something on them or if they were just stress cracks but they were there. Something to think about.