In same predicament as OP and decided to go with tile. I'm messy in the kitchen, honestly, always spilling water, etc. and tile is just easier to care for and I won't need to be paranoid about it. Plus trying to match the hardwood to the other floors would have been tricky.

We renovated 10 years ago, gutted a Colonial and turned it into an open plan house. We love hardwood floors, so we had no problem with hardwood everywhere else, but hesitated to use wood in the kitchen. The architect persuaded us to do hardwood everywhere. 10 years later, the floors look gorgeous everywhere but in the kitchen -- and I'm saying this as someone who chose honed over shiny granite and who loves the patina on wood furniture. If you actually use your kitchen -- if you cook, have kids and dogs, hardwood will look awful.

OTOH, have you ever cooked while standing on ceramic tile? It's really hard on the back. We had ceramic tile in our beach house kitchen when we bought it and switched to linoleum. Don't let the design police scare you off -- you can actually find some really nice linoleum flooring. I rounded up two architect friends who are moms to help me with this project, with great results: the kitchen is both functional and beautiful.

We have slate floors and I love it.

Anonymous wrote:Since it hasn't really been said yet, I vote neither. I don't want to stand on ceramic and I neither like the look of wood in the kitchen nor want to baby it. We're using Marmoleum.
If your kitchen is in an open layout between two spaces you plan to use hardwoods in, though, I'd probably want to continue the hardwoods into the kitchen and make sure they are excellently sealed.

This is what we did in our last house. I prefer it to wood or tile. (actually, I like tile best, but don't find it practical for the kitchen, since I feel like it never really feels clean. And it's a pain to clean, hard to stand on etc.)

I posted about poured concrete. I love that you have tons of stains to choose from. I'm sure it's not the most comfortable if you're standing for a long time, but realistically how long are you staying on your feet anyway? If you're prepping a long meal, you can pull out a foam or rubberized mat, or even a bar stool. When you're done, you can put them away.

Anonymous wrote:i like poured concrete

Love the look of this, but not exactly easy on the feet, no?

Our new home has hardwood throughout. I was used to tile and while it the wood does look beautiful I worry about how it will wear. I got a couple of durable runner rugs to help with that.

Anonymous wrote:I have hardwood in the kitchen, always worried it will be ruined. I would put ceramic tile that looks like hardwood in the kitchen. The best of both worlds.

Not the best if your objection is to how hard tile is (hard on the feet, hard on anything you drop).

I just bought a new construction townhouse and because of the open floor plan, I had to put hardwood in the kitchen. It would look really stupid to have ceramic in the kitchen due to the floor plan, even though I really would prefer ceramic. My plan is to have kitchen mats by the sink and the pet dishes to minimize water damage to the floors. I am planning on putting a polyurathane coating on the hardwood floors to help prevent damage (from pets and water) if it's not already done by the contractor.

*hardwood