There's no wrong answer here: its a subject that occasionally leads to some pretty heated battles, for no good cause. Consider the pros and cons of each as it applies to your own situation, choose accordingly, apologize to no one. I'm using mostly tile for two reasons: First, I know I'd stress over damage to a wood floor, even though I'd try not to; and second, I have a radiant floor and that restricts your wood choices to engineered and quarter sawn. I have seen some nice engineered floors-- check out Khars-- but the wood species selection tends to be fairly narrow, and its hard to find knotty, 'character' type woods. The 'rustic' ones usually means they have sort of a wavy texture that I don't care for. Quartersawn is more dimensionally stable, and I love qs oak for furniture. It's on the soft side for flooring, though, and it's very hard to find a harder wood like hickory in quarter sawn. The tile works for me on several levels. I'm all for low maintenence, and I don't want to worry about potential damage from pets, kids, other people's shoes [I'm a proud member of the Society for Barefoot Living], over watered plants or Christmas trees, aquarium leaks or snowy boots. Wood isn't hard to maintain, but you do need to keep at it on a pretty regular basis. You need to sweep up the inevitable grit etc. frequently so it doesn't act like sandpaper. Tile is much more forgiving of what I like to pretend is 'benign' neglect. I do plan to keep a big persian carpet in front of the LR fireplace most of the year. A simple way to add some visual warmth, and easy to change out as circumstances dictate. Wood will be a little softer for the kids to fall on, but will also be more slippery. A 'shoes off' rule will be almost mandatory while they are small and not able to judge for themselves when the shoes are dirty. Nothing matches wood for visual warmth, but nothing beats tile for long term wearability and ease of care.

Ouch, tough room. I assume you are not willing to take down the walls between the kitchen and laundry room and configure both spaces? I'm going to assume no and give you suggestions - if you come back and say yes, though, that may open a lot more possibilities, so be sure to let us know. Also, if you can repost with more and clearer measurements, I might be able to draw a layout for you. I am having a very hard time reading your measurements, and some are missing - lengths of all the walls, cabinetry runs, widths of doorways, etc. Regarding the distance issue, I can't read your measurements but you can refer to this NKBA Guideline: "Distance between Work Centers (Kitchen Triangle).. In a kitchen with three work centers the sum of the three traveled distances should total no more than 26' with no single leg of the triangle measuring less than 4 feet nor more than 9 feet." Do you meet that, or are you close to it? The second issue I see is that you have next to no actual prep space - if you added a prep sink to that run by the banquette that would help, but it's around the corner from the range and it would be better to consolidate your space. What I would really suggest is putting a little prep sink on your peninsula, right up against the fridge. It looks like you have maybe 45" on that space, and if you make the opening low enough so the counter can run right over it and into the DR a little, you will have a nice, deep (deep is important) prep space. Something like mamadadapaige's peninsula: She had a very tough layout and had to accommodate laundry in the space too - PLUS a chimney. Her space is not the same as yours but her layout is interesting and may spark ideas nonetheless. Alternatively, or in addition to doing that, you can deepen the sink/DW run by 6" to make that viable prep space. You can do this inexpensively by simply building a 2x6" frame, installing the cabinets against it, and running the counter over both. Or, you can do this less frugally by getting custom depth cabinetry. The reason I am harping on deeper counters, by the way, is that they are very superior for prep work. That is why so many put in islands and peninsulas, even without seating. I grew up in a home with a super tiny kitchen, but I didn't notice and cooking was always a pleasure. When we moved to a home with a technically larger kitchen, the standard depth counters, PLUS uppers in my face, made cooking much less nice. I basically stopped cooking! The third issue your planned prep space, where the old stove/oven space for prep. I see two problems with that. One is that you have no water source there, so you will not actually end up using it to prep. Again, that could be fixed by putting a small prep sink there. However, the second issue is that keeping cabinetry there makes the banquette area pretty useless and inaccessible. There is simply not room to fit a table because you have that run on the left squeezes the space too much - 5'9" (i can read that one) for a table plus room to squeeze by and get into the laundry room, all while carrying fully laundry baskets? No, especially if there are chairs on the other side of the table. You need to get rid of that run. I would end the stove run to be even with the wall and wouldn't turn the corner with it. Again, please post a layout with clearer and complete measurements, and let us know if you can move or remove any walls, or move any doorways - and which ones those might be. I have some ideas I would like to draw up for you. Here is a link that might be useful: NKBA's Thirty-One Kitchen Design Rules, Illustrated

that is a heap of stuff. could you maybe break this into a couple of different questions? maybe it will seem less exhausting in the morning, but right now... maybe one thread per room?

suedonim75- when we have company over, everyone either goes to the living room or the family room. The kitchen currently feels closed off from both. I don't want to knock down the two walls (one adjoining the dining room, and the other into the living room) because I would lose all my cabinet space. Was wondering if there was a way of solving this by knocking down wall into FR instead. (may not be possible, but wanted to see if anyone has tried it)