I think most people on this forum prefer hardwood throughout - I do too but am getting laminate because my husband doesn't want wood in the kitchen. With two teenagers and a big dog he is afraid it will get too beat up. There are some really realistic looking laminates out there now - shop around and see.

I'm completely biased, but I would do hardwood throughout the area. We've lived with hardwoods in a kitchen and I've never had a problem. We are in the process of building a new house and it will also have hardwood floors though out the entire house with the exception of the mud room (ceramic tile) and bathrooms. It definitely comes down to personal preference, but IMHO, I don't think I would want to break up the flooring in that area.

We had Wilsonart Estate Plus laminate in one of the tile patterns, rather than wood, in our last house. All laminates are not the same quality, the same look, or the same durability. Friends put in some that was 'a great deal' (about $1/sq ft compared to ours at almost $5/sq ft) and it had dings and cuts in it in the first month. I think the Estate Plus would last for years and years and probably decades...It still looked new when we moved, after having 7 kids and 3 dogs on it for 7 or so years. It was click together and we didn't have to glue it for it to be water tight in the kitchen. We have wood in our new house, and I miss the 'you can't hurt it' quality of the laminate. (We have Marmoleum Click in our new kitchen, and love that. I wish it was a look that would work throughout the house.)

Here are photos of the laminate in our last house. We ran it from the entry, in the kitchen, down the hallway, and into the dining room. We also put in a high quality acoustic pad so there was no clicking or hollow sound when we walked on it. The only thing I'd do differently is choose one with a slight texture to it, as this was smooth and tended to show water spots or smears from wiping it with a damp cloth if not dried.

If it were my house, I would do hardwood in the entry, dining room and kitchen and then a nice soft Berber in the Family room. But that's just me....plenty of people love hardwood throughout too.

I have an open kitchen/breakfast nook/FR. I had vinyl in the old kitchen and berber carpet in the FR; there was a horrendous cleaning problem at the transition with dirt always getting trapped at the edge, and it did chop up the area too much visually. I'm replacing with hardwood throughout, so I vote with your DH. OTOH, there is no reason why an area rug can't be put down on tile.

Hardwood throughout. If you don't want to worry about refinishing it down the road then get wood laminate.
Rugs will look good over any flooring (other than carpeting).

We have 18" porcelin tile on a diagonal throughout the kitchen, family room, hall, foyer & bath. I have kitchen rugs and a huge 10x12 rug in the Family room. It looks just fine.

We're doing hardwoods throughout and I am very excited about it. Hubby was very hesitant to do so due to all the "normal" concerns. So, I went out and did a ton of research (which led to my finding this site) so that we could realistically discuss the pluses and minuses of each flooring material. I was able to get him to agree to wood because of the following:

We're DIY and it's do-able (though after our experiences I believe I'd go with pre-finished vs. site finished for a DIY).

Hardwoods are refinishable / repairable unlike laminates and other surfaces.

Hardwoods are a natural material.

Hardwoods are easier on your back / feet than other surfaces.

If you shop around, hardwoods are not that expensive. (Depending on what you get, that is.)

Hardwoods are gorgeous and versatile.

They're fairly easy to clean.

People have been installing hardwood floors for many, many years and continue to do so.

Personally, I don't care for the same throughout: it always makes a home seem like the builder got a deal on something and used it everywhere he could. I'd rather choose floors based on how they will perform in the room.

Don't buy a wood look laminate until you see Berry floors, a brand from Belgium. They have a couple colors that you _cannot_ tell from wood. The wood grain pattern is embossed and the finish is low gloss, so its easier to care for and a bit less formal looking [great for a kitchen] than most.

If you do want a shiney, formal floor, Armstrong Grand Illusions is amazing. I was playing with it at the floor store the other day, laying pieces of it on top of real hardwood. The Armstrong actually looked MORE like wood because there was a larger range of tone and hue within each piece. Weird, but true...

BUT the Armstrong super shiney look shows scratches and dirt much worse than less formal floors, and some GWs in the flooring section have horror stories.

Because most laminates are laid as floating floors, there's a high chance that you'll need a T molding [like a threshold] between the living and dining, allowing them to expand and contract separately.

Real wood probably won't need T molding, and has far better sound characteristics. The new finishes are so strong that they'll last a normal family for years. You may have to be preparred to baby it a bit-- asking visitors to remove their shoes in inclement whether, etc.-- But if you have a good side walk and welcome mat and your guests have any sense at all, it won't be an issue most of the time.

And of course another option-- the one I'm leaning towards-- is to use a very hard wood like Hickory in a very rustic style, then use an easily renewed finish like tung oil. The Hickory will resist damage by being hard, the rustic style will disguise damage that does occur, and the oil finish will allow me to wipe on another coat as needed in areas where the damage does show.

No one loves wood floors more than me, but I won't be using them in the kitchen, where I want something bullet proof and scrubable. Simply put, I like tile for kitchens and baths. Use tile with a good wet CoF [coficeint of friction] and a dark grout, and its very east to maintain. Yes, if you drop a jar of pickles it will break, but if you drop it on a wood floor it may well give you a very deep gouge. Better to replace the pickles than the floor.

Of course you hear about how some people can't stand for long on tile, but I'm not sure how such people survive in the modern world, where 90% of stores and schools are built on cement slabs, and floored with [at most] a thin layer of lino-- not much cushion there. If you do tile and have an issue, you can always add good mats in front of the stove and sink...

But then you have to consider stuff from the 'none of the above' category, like amitco and the other wood look strip vinyls, etc.

Big fan of hardwoods, here. We have hardwoods throughout our house, with the exception of the foyer (slate tile), kitchen (laminate) and baths (tile). In our upcoming kitchen renovation we'll be putting in hardwoods. I do very little maintenance of our hardwoods and they always look good. As most of the flooring in our home is 100 years old or so, I can attest that it is certainly durable!! I don't mind the nicks, gauges etc that can develop over time - it is part of the charm for me (of course, some people would hate that). Refinishing is messy, but will leave the floors as good as new. I like tile as well, but living in the Northeast I find it too cold for a kitchen (unless you can spring for radiant heat).

If you have to do one kind of flooring thoughout I'd do either hardwood or a high-end wood-look laminate--unless you live in an area like Florida where you can get away with a tile floor throughout.

oruboru - the Armstrong is the laminate I am getting! I am not getting the grand illusion but found one in their 'exotics' line that looks exactly like the lightest grand illusion but without the high gloss! It's gorgeous!

Wow... thanks everyone for your input. After reading and discussing all of your advice, we are leaning towards a high-end wood look laminate, as Hest and many others have suggested.

Question: Do these nicer quality laminates hold up well in kitchens? And, DH would like to install our cabinets on plywood to raise them up to the level our floor will be, then install the laminate after the cabinets are in. Does this sound like a sound plan?

Should we do any sort of tile at the entryway? We do live in the northeast, so I am concerned about how all that winter slop will affect the laminate flooring. If we tile, how do we cut that off from the DR? Should we go into the DR a bit with it or end it at the doorway to DR, and should we tile all the way down the hall towards the kitchen, or just a little way? (see above floorplan)

A nice carpet is definitely in the works for the FR, as someone else suggested.

We are in the process of renovating our kitchen and we have hardwoods right now.

While I LOVE my hardwoods (and was really hesitant to give in to dh) we are going to be doing high end laminate.

The footprint of our kitchen has changed and we have a lot of voids that needed to be filled. The hardwoods also depserately needed to be refinished and we just did not want to spend the money only to have them scuffed and scratched after a short time.

We decided to leave the hardwoods and put the laminate over the top, this way we could always pull it up and refinish the wood if we decided to. We had to fill in the voids with plywood and all that's left is to choose the floor!

You will need to cut your door trim to allow the laminate to slide under it so be aware of that.

Dh works for a laminate flooring company so this was an easy decision for us...it was a lot of money to finish the hardwood vs. a free product. If we had to pay for the laminate though, I can tell you I'd probably go with refinishing our hardwood.

gardenwebber, we have had cheap laminate in our kitchen for 10+ years put in by the previous owner. It has held up great! Check out the Armstrong, I think they are a really good quality.

Gardenwebber, You just mentioned that you live in the NE....if you live in an old home, I wouldn't go with laminate. I believe it will definitely negatively affect any resale down the road.

Kec - I am not concerned about resale. We will be here for awhile raising a family.

But thank you for the heads-up.

What is your reasoning, out of curiosity? Why do you think it would affect resale?

chrissiemw - what pattern have you chosen? Will you be going with a wood-look, or a stone or tile look?

Bumping...

We visited a floor store this weekend and brought home many samples of laminate and vinyl floor planks, all wood-look.

I think we are leaning towards one of the higher end laminate wood-looks and using it throughout the foyer, DR, and whole kitchen.

My new questions are:

Does high-end laminate scratch or scuff under barstools or dining table chairs?

How does high end laminate hold up under water? The salesman we talked to was very confident that the choices we took home would be fine in areas where there could be water from time to time.

What sort of wood tone should I look for that will look nice with the maple cabinets in the kitchen, and the dark cherry dining set in the DR?

Does anyone think I would be better off design-wise with tile-looking laminate in the kitchen, then wood-looking laminate in the foyer/DR?? (don't want real tile, too hard and too cold for my tastes)

Also, does anyone know anything about vinyl planking? The sample we looked at had a lot of nice texture and was realistic looking. Might be a nice option since it will be in the kitchen and foyer, both watery places from time to time. It is a floating floor that glues at the seams on tabs that interlock.

Thank you again for your input.

gardenwebber, our old laminate never scratched under bar stools, but I did put pad/glide things on the feet. The only way it has worn (in 10+ years) is that the seams are starting to show. The new stuff will have beveled edges which is supposed to solve this problem.

I looked at laminate tile when I was deciding. A neighbor used it in her new kitchen and it looks nice. But her cabinets are white and I am getting maple - 'toffee' which has golden undertones - and I thought the tile colors were all too pinkish or gray. I needed something with more of a golden tone, so I went with wood look.

You might take a sample of your cabinet to the flooring place to match it up and then take a sample of the flooring home with your cabinet sample and see how it all looks in your kitchen with your DR furniture. I've been carrying around a sample cabinet door for months!!

Cambro - thanks for your input. I can't seem to find a tile pattern that I like with our wood, either.

I really want wood. But I don't want the maitenance. We are having a tough tough time deciding between laminate wood look and vinyl wood look. The high - end laminate we want is $4.89/sq ft and the vinyl wood planks is $3.89/sq ft. Both nice products we think. Just tough to decide. The vinyl planks really seem to look nice and would be a really nice waterproof solution for our kitchen and foyer...

Our high end laminate didn't scratch under stools or dining chairs...and we didn't put any pads on like we've had to for our new wood floor. It was a locking/click together type and we didn't have any problem or worry about it around the kitchen sink or dishwasher. The rep I talked to said his distributor put together a 10x10' section and put out in their parking lot for 3 weeks during a wet month here in the Pacific NW...No damage, no swelling.

I would stick with the wood look throughout. We did the tile look because of it butting up to 30 yr old oak flooring.

I think red oak or birch type appearance would look good with the maple and cherry...Lighter than cherry, but darker than maple, and with warm tones to go with the cherry. But it's best, of course, to look at samples, as Cambro5 suggested.

Rhome - thank you for your helpful advice, as usual.

I don't really know what red oak looks like. I know when I look at flooring, I don't like the ones that look reddish. I gravitate towards the really aged looking rustic patterns. Here is the pattern we are considering in vinyl planking, linked below. The computer doesn't do it justice - I should have taken a picture of the sample we brought home. But this pattern seems to fall right in between our light maple cabs and our dark cherry dining set. And, ironically, if you put the sample down on our original DR hardwood floor (very soft, aged, damaged, and not refinishable) it actually matches it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pattern in Konecto vinyl flooring

Sorry - you'll have to click on the "sunrise" pattern to see the sample. We liked that and the "sunset" pattern as well.

I love the 'sunset' color. Red oak doesn't look reddish. I'll post a photo of the red oak floors in our last house. The builtins are cherry.

I was going to suggest that you look at vinyl planks, but you already have. I much prefer them to laminate. Practically bullet-proof, and looks like wood.

I love hardwood and have it everywhere in my house *except* the kitchen and foyer. Those will be vinyl plank in a wood pattern.