I'm not a professional, so this is just a personal opinion. I am learing of laminate in a kitchen just because of the water issue and the fact I have children, not sure if this is your situation also. Between the 2 you are considering I would suggest vinyl since it stands up to more, especially water!! We are putting in tile but our flooring store did show us vinyl that looks VERY much like tile, so you have that option too. GL

sippimom, That does help. Thanks for letting me know that the Amendoim floors are beautiful in person. I never saw them in person so I only have wood samples and pictures on the Internet versus I have seen Brazilian Cherry floors in one of the townhouses in my complex that were beautiful but there was no light in the room (only 2 lamps with 60 watt bulbs and the walls and furniture were very dark) so I could not tell if it would darken my home office that needs light. I also love Quartersawn White Oak and wonder if there is any quality engineered wood floors in this wood species and how a light floor would hold up to heal marks. Since many months have passed and my beige rug now is being cleaned every 3 weeks and is starting to never look clean, I am ready for any floor other than this beige rug so after my busy season, I must make a decision and go for it. When I have time, I will have to post pictures of my foyer areas that I ended up having a professional install Akoya Bone Porcelain Tile with Mushroom grout rather than the Rialto Beige tiles I was going to go with.

Welcome. Love your furry nappers! It is always my goal, when making a transition from one flooring to another, especially in an open plan, to use two materials very close in color. I like the border to disappear if I can get it to and I would make that the priority...not the brick, or the cabinets or the wall color.

If budget were the issues, I'd cut other places (and did) to put granite in. Well worth it, it's great to cook on and no more looking at those spots where someone either forgot to use a cutting board, or accidentally stained or burned (which will happen, it's just a question of when). Undermount sinks (made possible by granite) make sweeping crumbs/excess water back into the sink soooooo easy and no more gunk building up at that edge. It really isn't just about looks. We also had a realtor come and price our house before our kitchen renovation, and she (a top realtor in our area) increased the sell price of our house citing the granite countertop we used in our basement kitchen, saying something about it being a high dollar look-- which was funny but telling because we used in-stock cabinets from a big-box store in that downstairs kitchen -- but that's what granite does. You can think of it as $1500 you're putting in upfront but likely to get back when/if you sell, you might as well get it and enjoy it if it doesn't actually cost you much (if anything) in the bigger picture. Also be sure you carry in competitor's ads on the granite, we got a much better price by bringing a flyer to our local granite yard and asking for the $35/sq ft installed price they were offering (they knocked it down from $50). You might be able to get that gap even smaller. Kris