FWIW,we have had full oak (not engineered) floors in our kitchen for almost 20 years (+dog&child). They are just now needing refinishing. Would I do it again, absolutly. Easy on the feet and easy on the eyes, even in it's present condition.
We did use a water based polyurethane, with no stain, and that's what I would use again. A dark stained floor would likely show wear quicker.
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I've had both, so here is my opinion.
Tile:
Pros...
Easy to clean, resistant to abuse, comes in every color and size you can imagine. If you live near the beach and tend to track in sand, it will wear better than wood. In hot climates it is cool underfoot. Liquid spills will not damage it.

Cons...
Hard underfoot if you have back or feet issues. Cold in the winter if you live up north and don't have heated floors. Everything you drop on it will break. (We put a small rug in front of the fridge thanks to multiple messy glass accidents)

Wood:
Pros ... Softer and warmer underfoot. I go barefoot all the time without feeling like I'm walking on an iceberg. Can run seamlessly into rooms where tile generally isn't used, such as living/dining areas.

Cons ... Depending on species and finish, can be prone to wear. Water can damage it.

Against the advice of my KD I put in wood. I wanted the warm, soft feeling of wood, and have never liked the hard feeling of tile. I'm in Canada, so a warmth, both in feeling and looks, is very important to me. An added bonus is that it's finished to match the l/r and d/r, so visually it's very unified.

But there are a few dents where something heavy was dropped, and I used a vacuum cleaner and scratched it over a very wide area (no one except me would see that due to light). In spite of that I really love it and don't regret it at all. (it's only been a year)

Wood is organic and will be prone to dents and dings which I decided to embrace and not fret over, and it can be polished, not refinished, every 3 or 4 years.

Are you leaning one way or another?

Will one tie in better with the rest of the flooring already laid?

I fought wood for years before finally putting it in. Now I love, love, love it.

We have wood in our new build, because I wanted the same surface in the great room/kitchen/etc. It draws the rooms together, which I appreciate. I prefer the look of wood.

We went with tile in a couple bathrooms and the mudroom/laundry.... because of the potential for water spillage (dogs in mudroom, my wet feet daily in bathroom, etc.) I don't like tile, though.... as the grout can look really nasty.

lolauren, I agree, I had a lovely pale gray grout in my old house that looked gross in no time. In my new house, in the mud area, which flows into the 1st floor bathroom and back entry hall, I put a dark slate-colored tile with matching dark nearly-black grout. Much better!

We also have gone through the wood or tile question for the kitchen. My husband wanted tile and I wanted wood. We are getting wood. I have seen some great tile in kitchens but love the flow of the wood throughout and have read it is easier on the feet having wood. It's pretty much a personal choice so good luck!

No surface is "perfect". There are pros & cons to each one. In our case, we have tile in our Kitchen, Foyer, & PR; wood in our DR (where we eat all our meals); carpet in the FR, LR, and Library/Computer Room.

We put tile where we did b/c of the dogs...we have 2 standard poodles. While we're away at work, they "live" in the Foyer/PR/upstairs hall area. They had badly scratched our "top of the line" vinyl floor within a year, so we thought tile would be best. We also had multiple "dings" and gouges on the vinyl in the kitchen over the years, so tile also seemed a good idea for the kitchen.

The result was the tile/wood combination. My experiences with the wood & tile...

Tile...

Yes, the tile is great in the Kitchen/Foyer/PR for cleanability, cool floors in our fairly long hot summers (and springs & falls!), and they don't get scratched from the dogs. [The dogs love sleeping on the tile in the hot weather.]

Surprisingly, not everything breaks when dropped on the tile...but most things do. (I've had a glass jar and a couple of my stoneware dishes that did not break...very surprised! Yes, other glass jars & dishes have broken, but not that many overall.)

Yes, tile is hard on the feet and back...as I've discovered this past summer. We've had the tile floors for over two years and this summer is the first time I've noticed that my back hurts after standing/working on them for even a couple of hours. My feet start to hurt after several hours. I'm not sure why they're bothering me all of a sudden, but they do (*sigh* could it be age?) [I'm now waiting for the Gel Pro site to have a sale on the "Rattlesnake" mat in "Macadamia" b/c that combination will blend in with our tile floors to almost invisibility. When they do, I'll be getting two...one for each side of the kitchen.]

No scratches/chips/nicks or cracked tiles so far...

Wood (Brazilian Cherry)...

It's been down now for 18 months.

It's easy to clean and gives a nice warm "glow" to the DR.

However, the two dogs had already scratched it up in less than a year...especially where they "turn the corner" to get to the Kitchen following the LR-to-DR-to-Kitchen path. From what I can tell, though, I think the scratches are on the finish rather than the wood below the finish.

There are also some scratches from chairs that weren't as protected as we thought they were (they supposedly had "wood friendly" feet).

However, there are also a couple of deeper scratches that are into the wood from the china cabinet when it was moved around.

Yes, the wood can be refinished, but it's not something I want to do every year or even every few years...I'm wondering if Teak will be any better and if I can get a "harder" top finish. I'd like to replace the carpet in the LR and Library and the wood in the DR with Teak sometime in the future... [Maybe I should consider a high quality laminate...it's less expensive, much easier, & less labor intensive to replace every few years, if needed...but I really do like hardwoods!]

Neither :) I recommend travertine. Warm, easy to maintain, indestructible.

Wow, thanks for all of the input. You've brought up some good points I hadn't considered, such as wood being easier on your back and feet and little doggies causing lots of scratches.

Sugar maple, I am currently leaning more toward wood. That was my original choice for a long time, then I switched to tile because I like to clean the kitchen floors with soap and water and thought they would be cleaner. I also read how dark wood floors can show dust very quickly. Now though, I think I am switching back to wood because I love the look (although there are some beautiful tile floors that I love too). The kitchen will be open to the adjoining family room which will have a new wood floor. It would be nice to have the consistency of the same flooring, but if I did choose tile, I think it could still be tied in fairly well and there shouldn't be any issues with height difference.

Pharaoh, I hear you on the travertine, but I already have it in two bathrooms! I love it, but would like to do something different for the kitchen.

For those of you with wood floors in the actual kitchen or eating area, how do you clean them?

Buehl, can teak be stained a really dark mahogany color? Are there other hardwoods that don't dent as easily? Thanks!

I had wood in my kitchen in my last house for about 28 years with one refinish. I did it again here and wouldn't think of anything else.

Some folks here also love their cork floors, so that's something you might want to look into.

The link below is for a 'hardness scale' for wood. It might give you an idea for the wearability of different woods.

Personal experience: I love my wood floors, but they do get dinged. Just a few months after our reno we had a party, and someone wore bad shoes (high skinny heels with the nail poking out from the heel.) So parts of my floor look like a golf ball with dozens of little dimples.

However, I'd still rather have my dimpled wood than tile. Love the tile in my mudroom and front entrance, as it's so easy to clean. But I think I'd get a sore back and feet if it was in my kitchen. (That's just me - I'm tall, prone to a sore back, and go without shoes inside.)

Personal tile experience: on Friday my daughter dropped a bottle of nail polish on the tile in the front hall. Naturally it was the darkest, reddest color she has, not a neutral or clear! It shattered all over (looked like a crime scene) and a big splatter got on the first riser of the (new) carpet leading upstairs. It was easy to clean off the tile... but I don't think it would have shattered if it fell on wood. (I think the carpet stain is there to stay.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Janka Wood Scale

I just mop up spills with a damp cloth and once in a great while I haul out the Swiffer Wet Jet wood floor cleaner, but I admit I've only done this twice in the last four years.

I vacuum about twice a week with the roller turned off on the vacuum cleaner -- it's much faster the sweeping!

We've had maple and white oak floors. The white oak is much more resistant to wear than the maple was.

I've had tile in kitchens twice and I hated the grout lines, the hardness and the cold feeling. I don't have back problems, but I had to buy a rubber mat for the tile floors.

"For those of you with wood floors in the actual kitchen or eating area, how do you clean them? "

I don't, someone else does! ;-) However, they just sweep, then use a damp sponge-mop with Murphys Oil Soap.

Once every week or two I use a spray for wood or laminate floors and dry it with a terry cloth thingy, that goes into the wash every time. (sorry for the technical term!) It leaves them beautiful and shiny.

I don't bother doing it much in the living or dining room, but the kitchen needs it regularly.

I also use it on my stairs and bannister. My installer recommended it as a way to cut through the oil and grease accumulation.

It also depends on your cab choices. I like wood for the floor better if it is not paired with wood cabs. It also looks nice if you have the right tone wood counters with it.

I love tile and the man ways you can lay it, make patterns, choose colors, etc.... It seems more perky & creative to me and much more kitchen-like. The wood gives a different, more serious/elegant look than we are going for.

We have wood in all our living spaces other than the kitchen, but our new kitchen will be tile.

I've had hardwood in three kitchens now, love it. I might reconsider if I had a dog, however.

I like the Bona Kemi hardwood cleaning kit, spray cleaner and microfiber mop. I learned about Bona on GW, do a google search for cleaning hardwood floors and gardenweb, there are many recommendations and reviews.

Have always had wood cabs and tile floors. If I had white cabs I would get wood floors. Have never felt the tile floors were too hard -- am more inclined to feel that granite counters are too hard and too cold, and to prefer wood there. The tile holds up well and is easy to care for. Because our kitchen adjoins our back entryway and we have two little dogs, the tile just makes sense.

Love my hardwoods! We put in white oak with just a smidge of a stain with satin finsh. I wanted the floors to look like they had been down for years not months. It is definately a personal choice regarding the finish (We love it) but it is not the norm. Love the seamless look flowing into all adjoining rooms. Makes the kitchen seem much bigger. I have a Yorkie who is messy with his water bowl and I have found water drops hours after he has made the mess with no ill effects. Clean with murpheys oil soap for heavy clean otherwise love Bona system. I would NEVER put tile in, just to hard on my back and feet, my parents put it in and my Mom cried over how uncomfortable it was for years. Also, I personally don't like a freezing floor (New England brrrr). Yup total lover of hardwood!!!! :-)

have had both - loved my marble tile floor for cleaning and appearance it always looked great. HATED my white ceramic tile floor - showed absolutely everything and had to be cleaned constantly and was very hard on the back. love love LOVE my factory finished hickory wood floors now. They are so nice in bare feet, look good even when they are dirty and are a breeze to clean. Gotta have the rug by the fridge and the sink though.

The worst mistake I made in my kitchen was getting a tile floor. It's cold, the grout gets grimy and cracks, everything dropped on it breaks (no -- it explodes), and it's horrible on your back and joints to stand on it for any length of time. If I ever get the chance, I will have it changed to something else.

Okay, thanks to all of you, I think it's decided. Switching back to wood floors. Yep, wood floors. I'm on decision overload and having trouble sticking with a decision that has already been made. Twice.

I'll check out all of the different cleaning products that were suggested. Chicagoans, thanks for posting the Janka Wood Scale. That will help me decide what species to choose.

Can anyone suggest a tough, durable hardwood that would stain well as a dark mahogany color? If you have a floor this color, do you find that it shows dust very quickly?

I don't know how well teak (Cumaru) takes a stain... But now I'm thinking "Patagonian Rosewood" b/c it's so hard! Not sure how that takes a stain either!

Hmmm...if you have really hard hardwood, is it like tile when standing/working on it????

I have been living on either tile or marble (radiant heat) for 20 years now. My allergies are a lot less, but my feet and back are getting worse each year. We are rebuilding and putting in wood which will be factory finished with a "diamond finish" at the suggestion of GC & ID. We dance and have dogs, so we expect to abuse this floor. Good luck!

I would never have anything but wood!

We have oak floors. They are the natural oak color. While they do ding, they are so much better for your back! They don't get slippery like tile floors can be. My kids have spilled everything on them. We go through a lot of paper towels in our house. :)

We use a mixture of hot water and vinegar to clean them. On an almost daily basis we Swiffer them too. They look so nice when we clean them. These floors came with the house (12 years old) and they just now need refinishing.

My sister has very light maple floors and hers show a lot more scratches than mine. My SIL has very dark wood floors (can't remember what kind of wood) and they show every single dust particle. I think mine being a medium color hide a lot more.