I too do not have a pic to show you but in our last house I had two hardwoods abut each other at a doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. The woods were the same but the kitchen was left natural after my sick little dog wrecked the finish and I loved the natural. The dining room was midtone and had ambered over the years. I plan to use a different wood and color for my kitchen and again they will abut at the dining doorway. The areas are both large enough to stand on their own. The house does not look piecemeal but it certainly is not matchy-matchy either.
How wide is the abutting area? A tip my installer gave me is to run a piece of the new floor across the doorway so the two different woods abut that piece and not end to end. I know there is a trend right now to have all one flooring on each level. That's great if you are building and like that look but those of us in existing homes don't usually do an entire floor remodel so that may not work for us.
HTH

owls4me-when you walk in my front door, the wood is running left to right, you head to the kitchen by going forward and to the left...(you can see the kitchen from the foyer) the entryway to the kitchen is only a doorway--maybe 30"? So do you think the kitchen's hardwood should change direction? Instead of going from "left to right", go straight forward? Maybe the directional change would help ease the transition?

Changing direction is a great way to make the transition look good. And if it's just a doorway to worry about, I think you can get away with anything that's not too clashy.

And before you decide against the floor you'd already selected (although cork would be so nice in a family room), are you sure you don't love it in the kitchen? Have you taken it out of the crate and filled in a few areas to get a feel for it?

fori-we are still planning on laying it out on the floor and checking it out before proceeding with spending more money on this project! I'm not sure I said it in the original post, but this was the first thing I decided on for my kitchen! I saw it and fell in love with it. The entire kitchen has really been designed around a piece of cork flooring! Who does that?

Just because light looks good, it doesn't mean dark won't look good too! Now go spend more money on this project by buying a digital camera. (Or go take some pictures to share!)

If you really wanted to do a different flooring instead of the dark cork could you do a light cork?

We're doing real linoleum (Marmoleum by Forbo) in our kitchen. If you look around right now you can find deals since they recently redesigned how their click system works. The old click system is about $3.99/sqft right now. It's great and I'm really excited about it. It comes in all kinds of colors  some really brights and some subtle shades.

Here is a link that might be useful: marmoleum

I saw this irl at a show for green building products. It was outstanding - a little give to it, matte to shiney surface. No grain to it.

I have no idea of its pricing - but a soft checker board or edge pattern?

Here is a link that might be useful: Expanko

I'll see if I can dig up a picture to show you (and I know this sounds a little nuts), but flooring in contrasting stripes (dark and light wood, or a checkerboard of light and dark cork) might work to tie in the different floors.

So if you follow fori's suggestion and still feel the floor is too dark for the kitchen, you will have a beautiful family room that you love. In my previous house the wood just continued the same direction w/o a transition piece but it was the same wood. In my current house since the wood will be different I'll do a transition piece but run it the same way b/c of the shape of the space.
If someone is laying this floor for you then I would ask how this is usually addressed. Installers see lots of different applications so they may give ideas you wouldn't think of on your own. Then you do your own thing or follow their ideas.

Sounds familiar. I am doing a creamy perimeter and cherry island kitchen, as well. The KD recommended for us to go a couple of shades lighter than the island on the floor if I wanted some contrast with the island, and for it to stand out a bit. My problem was that the resulting color did not match up at all with what I have going on in the rest of the first floor, which we did around ten years ago with Mirage prefinished in a light color. I really did not want to restain the floors in those spaces - not only have we already decorated, but the house has 8 foot ceilings in that section and I just thought that going dark on the floors would make the house feel less open and airy. But at some point, I can always restain the floors to match in there if I want.

Anyway, I really agonized over this - I considered doing porcelain tile in the kitchen, but really didn't want it in the family room, too, which is part of a wide open floor plan with the kitchen. I thought of doing tile in the kitchen and wood in the family room -and that certainly would have been one possibility. After much angst, I ended up just putting in the darker wood in the kitchen and family room with a transition to the foyer and dining room. And you know what? After all that, the look of the transition turns out not to bother me at all (which is saying something ;) ). Unfortunately the floors are still covered by paper to protect them, so I don't have a photo for you. As fori points out , maybe it would have been different if there was a wider opening than just a doorway, or if the woods clashed, which was not the case.

We also ended up going in the same direction with the wood. It turned out we had no choice anyway because the walls weren't completely plumb at one point in the old section. This way, we are running the wood perpendicular to the family room fireplace, which is what I wanted in the first place. At any rate, the way I look at it, I'd rather compromise on a few foot doorway than on an entire space.

I love the dark cork flooring. One thing I was told in looking at it is that it will lighten a bit over time as it is exposed to UV light. The sample I saw in the store had more depth (lighter specs) as opposed to the sample I checked out. Can you lay out a section of the cork flooring you have so you can see a larger area? Good luck!