You said : "Our kitchen has honey oak colored cabinets (built in 1980s) which we don't plan to paint or restain yet."

Does this mean that a change to the cabinets is in the near future? If so, I would hold off on replacing the floors so that you can replace both the floors and make the cabinet change at the same time. You don't want to have a flooring decision made today to force you to limit your cabinet options in the future.

If you are planning to replace the rest of the floors (looks like carpet in the room behind the kitchen, you will have an opportunity to decide if you want the kitchen flooring to be the same as the rest of the house. A flooring choice today would limit your options for that later. (The Houzz flooring police will arrest you if you decide to put a wood look floor in the kitchen today and later want hardwood in the rest of the house.)

Thank you kempek01. However, we plan to do bit by bit. We don't have any plans to remove carpets since it was changed recently.

My main concern would be if you mean vinyl when you say "planks", especially if they're going to be next to real wood in an adjoining room -- nothing makes fake wood look more fake than being next to the real thing. You could try to match or harmonize with the wood in the foyer -- you didn't say what color it is, but it would be ok with the cabinets if it's several shades lighter or darker. This area would look beautiful with natural oak, for example.

1. yeah.. that's the kind of challenge we're facing. the hardwood in foyer is dark brown color and one in kitchen cabinets is honey oak. The moment we match something with foyer, it looks great at that part, but then start looking too dark when close to cabinets. Attaching an image for reference.

For a more modern look go with wide (5 inch) wood planks. It is totally ok to mix two different wood colors as long as they are not too close in color (you don't want it to look like you tried to match it). I would go with red or white oak floors with a light Swedish finish. They will match any color or style of cabinets that you later decide to do. Best of luck!

Personally, I wouldn't go with anything that looks like wood. I would choose a fabulous laminate or vinyl flooring instead. There are so many options and colors and it won't look like fake wood or flooring that was attempting to match the cabinets but fell short.

no. where it meets the actual wood floor there will be a neon flashing FAKE sign....

That's a great advice SJ. Yes, we're keeping the wood floors. We have settled on lighter color (b/w lighter & darker) for the same reasons as you mentioned. We haven't looked into stone tiles yet, will explore that out next.

Will the fake wood sit next to the real stuff?

Are you OK with 'stone look' stuff that is sitting in a sitting room? It can look a bit weird. A carpeted area is normally a place for warmth and comfort whereas a stone floor is normally for hardwork and toughness (like entrances and kitchen flooring).

Personally I would try to run more wood into the sitting area by the fireplace and then use a stone-look/tile look vinyl in the kitchen.

The sitting area is carpeted with a fireplace with brick background. The carpet was changed when we bought the house, so it's recent and don't plan to change it.

Regarding kitchen, our first project is to change floors. Second project (with a gap of few months) be to update countertop, backsplash, lighting and paint.

OK...so you ARE updating the kitchen. OK. Now we are getting to the nitty gritty.

Take TWO WEEKS (yep...1/2 month) to figure out your ENTIRE HOUSE colour scheme. This will become your 7 year renovation plan. 'Cause once you change ONE THING you start seeing how tired everything else looks. Nope. I'm not kidding.

The 7 year renovation time frame is roughly how long it takes to do everything - piece by piece.

What you are going to do is give yourself an END LOOK. It's like grabbing a train in a foreign country. Would you jump on one just 'hoping' you get where you are going? No. You would plan your trip to suit the train schedules.

So don't just 'jump in' with flooring and hope (against hope) you get to where you want to be. Take the time right now to plank how each space will look. Go ahead and gather paint chips and list what colour you want for each space.

Your kitchen has 7 (seven) elements:

1. Cabinets (big ticket item)

2. Counter tops (big ticket item)

3. Flooring (big ticket item)

4. Appliances: Total expenditure with 5 (or more) items = big ticket item

5. Backsplash (low budget)

6. Lighting (low budget)

7. Paint/wall colours (low budget)

Wow! That's just for the kitchen!!!! Holy Hanna!

Now imagine the sitting room with the fireplace...and the entrance...living room...dining room...bathrooms...bedrooms. Whew!

If you mess up ONE choice today you mess up everything down the line.

Trust me on this one (we see it multiple times a day on Houzz). Sit down and figure out the ENTIRE house and all of it's colours (get paint chips to match).

Now you start purchasing things like paint, backsplashes, lighting, etc.

And BTW...you want to update your LIGHTING well before you update anything else...so that you can see the FINAL colour of the products in your house.

I truly appreciate your detailed suggestions. It has made us think much more and for the longer term. We tried something with stone look - virtual reality pic attached. What do you think? In the image, the stone extends to the adjoining room, but it won't in reality.

Something like the stone-look product will replace the current beige vinyl on the floor. It works so long as you keep the white carpet in the sitting room. And then when you replace the carpet, you will have to keep the white theme.

That's why you want to think this through...to have a continuous floor colour you have to have a 25 year 'long look forward' approach. Just remember that.

Since we don't want a white theme throughout the house, we tried with biege color stone-looking vinyl planks this time. I'm hoping that this should work as we plan to remove carpet in the future (not for another 5 years though)

If you google colorful vinyl floor tile you will find lots of cool options. I like the idea of vinyl flooring because it can cohabitate nicely with wood floors, carpet, etc. Here's just one example from Home Dept. that is peel and stick but vinyl flooring also comes in sheets and planks. https://www.homedepot.com/p/FloorPops-Antico-Peel-and-Stick-Floor-Tiles-12-in-x-12-in-20-Tiles-20-sq-ft-TFP2947/309458643

FORBO/Marmoleum is a great product.

Extend HW from foyer into kitchen. Color looks to be close match to cabinets, which can look better than different shades, see examples below.

Would improve lighting, and use light colored backsplash, countertop, and wall color.

You have nice lighting from windows and adjacent room, so matching HW floors should be fine and will improve the cohesiveness of your home.