Realism, actually the more I look at granite, I prefer the laminate. With some of the laminates and the new effects, I actually had to go over and knock on them to determine if they were real or not. We're going with bull-nosed edging on the laminate so I don't think it'll look cheap when it's finished. Hemera, ha, yeah I asked the builder about the floor…he was polite but basically said "yeah, you can't afford it…" ;) Ppbenn, yay! :) 35ftcabo, I LOVE your kitchen! Do you know the style/name of the handles you chose? That's what I'm looking for and haven't quite found yet. And in your first pic, what is the cabinet behind the peninsula? It almost looks like a hutch…was that a custom piece? It's gorgeous! Phoebesmom, do you have any photos of your finished kitchen? I'd love to see it "in action" rather than just the sample piece I've got. I really love the color, too!

You will never find an installer willing to risk it either. Unless they are a hack. Electric floor heat and vinyl never ever belong together. The floor gets too hot, and vinyl expands too much. Vinyl bonded to a different material substrate expands at a different rate, and delamination is the eventual result. Physics.

Thanks so much for the detailed advice, @SJ McCarthy! I do have 3 extra boxes and then some, and so far pulling them up isn't seeming too difficult to do but I'm sure we'll run into some issues :-) The condo rules aren't very specific: 80% of floors must be carpet or area rugs - we have carpet in the bedrooms and someone on the board told me that LVP with an underlay is fine; this one has a pre-attached pad. But thanks for brining it up - I do want to run it by them once more to be sure before we totally finalize things. When you say "a little grinding PLUS a little leveling compound" are you referring to self leveling compound? It does seem to me that SL would be the best way to easily get a good level. We've worked with some patching material (Henry 345) on a few spots, and it has the appeal of potentially being simpler than SL up front (doesn't have to be mixed and doesn't require primer), but it's more expensive for covering a given area, and doesn't level itself. I'm still trying to figure out if we can reasonably apply self leveler to just a portion of the room, and I'm thinking mainly that will require that there is indeed a consistent "low" spot / sink so that the SL doesn't run out into the areas we don't want to repair. That does seem to be the case, but I need to really spend the time with a level to fully map it out. Thanks again!

I live near a Daltile showroom and picked up this black slate look tile (click these words) for our kitchen family room renovation. This "Daltile Delegate Black" is porcelain and has some "slate-like" dimension on the surface. I also have samples of Daltile's real Brazilian black slate tile so I can make a comparision. Brazil Black Slate These tiles do not come in 12 by 24." Although they look black in the picture, they are a soft charcoal gray in real life. Only available in a square shape. Perhaps a sealer would make it look blacker? If so, we don't want a floor that requires that level of maintenance. As such, we will probably go with "Delegate Black." I just took this picture. Here is a single 12” by 24” Delegate tile on the bottom, two Brazil Black slate tiles above and a square sample of a black painted wood for reference. The Brazil Black tiles are slightly darker than pictured below. The Brazil Black (the real slate) also leans slightly blue (at least these two tiles do). The Delegate Black doesn't appear to lean blue or green. What appears to be "veins" in the tile are actually changes in the surface of the slate/porcelain. I've been to other tile showrooms and the Daltile "Delegate Black" is the best fake slate I've seen. @Gin J Choosing flooring is just a tough process for those of us who cannot have single type of hardwood throughout the home. Our kitchen is next to an engineered hardwood floor that we cannot match since it's a distinct style that was made 10 or so years ago. Porcelain tile is our best bet. Black plays nicely with the amber/ distressed/ red tones of the engineered wood floor it will abut.