Hi tinker - Im late to the post, but just have one thought I wanted to share.... You have shown several pictures with kind of busier patterns - specifically on the floor. With your oak cabs and wainscoting - I think you need to pick which you want to be the busy element. Which do you love most? One of the three needs to be really toned down. Now, you have said painting the cabs and wainscoting is off limits - if that is so, the floor needs to be really, really movement free. That said, based on some of your floor pix you have put up - I think your kitchen would be the prettiest with the wainscoting painted white, walls painted a buttery cream, and then one of your great floor choices. Cabs as is and then the addition of any of your accents. I am married to a - "you don't paint wood" guy. However, I'm working to amend that to "you don't paint good wood". Realistically, the wainscoting is not technically "good wood". I know my DH would fuss - but I could wangle the painted wainscoting... Although, maybe not your priority, it would give you so much more room for pattern where you love it most. Also - I think painting the walls in the blues and greens will make your oak appear more orange - the opposite color wheel contrast thing. I would instead go with a complementary color (hense the buttery cream) leaving your accents to be in the great contrast colors. I'm in the midst of planning my budget kitchen and am having to plan around more busy wood than you can imagine (fir ceilings, with big beams and an oak floor). My DH won't let me get painted cabinets - so, I have really, really been on the same mission, and looked at a million pictures. I think you really need to decide which element will be calm, and then stick to it.

Bad news. The Armstrong Vivero Best Interlock Vinyl flooring that was installed in my house it is defective and has the peaking issue (elevation on the short ends and also 1-2 mm of separation. I was told by Armstrong Customer Service that they solved that issue and since Septmember las year was good, also the retailer where I bought it from told me it was good. I live in NY and house I just installed it's in NC so I wasn't able to check floor before installation and my installer didn't check or notice it. I paid about $6500 for flooring plus $750 for uderlaying paper plus $3500 for installation, so lost about $11000 thousand on hard earned money. My wife and I are very upset and sad that were ripped off with a defective product and we don't know what to do, we don't have money to hire a Lawyer and were planning to move in in a month. I am calling and emailing Armstrong today hoping they pay somebody to remove their defective flooring, installed a non defective one or the glue one along with new quarter round. We are desperate and any advise will be appreciatted. I hope the person that had the peaking problem reads this and says what happened to his defective floor problem and how he solved. Thank you. My email is jsmexusa@gmail.com in case you want to email me.

We installed 2600 sf of Happy Feet Pinnacle LVP in our new build and am very happy with it. i had read through this group many times prior but decided with grown kids it was more important to us to have a matte look and low maintenance than risk wearing out our socks. I definitely prefer the feel of natural wood under bare feet but this LVP is not wearing out our socks or our bare feet. So far it feels like a great decision. interesting anecdotal observation - when in our old house, which had hardwood throughout, when we laid out various LVP samples and left them there for a week, our dog stated laying on the Happy Feet sample section. Never the other samples. 🤔

When you post a dilemma and it includes comparisons it is always good to post pics of what you are comparing. I for one just hate going searching for the items .