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I like stained concrete, too!! Always thought you could start with that & if it cracks or you get tired of it, you could do something different later.

Sandee, I think they use a good grade of concrete inside houses. I can't imagine the floor I saw ever cracking.
I can't imagine getting tired of it either. lol

Jacquie- I saw this on FB too- but I'll chime in here also! We had tile in our kitchen and took it out because we hated it. It was white with (supposedly) peach grout. The tile showed every little grain of dirt, every little blade of grass, every tiny drip of coffee, and I could never keep the grout clean- I could get on my knees and scrub it with a toothbrush and two days later you couldn't tell. Now we have stained concrete and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's so easy to keep clean and looks great.

I have had vinyl, tile and now wood. I would advise that if you are doing tile, make sure it is good quality. We moved into a house with a tile kitchen and the tile broke everytime something hard dropped on it -- chip here, corner broken there. Put a good quality tile in another house and the person who laid it did a bad job -- the tile worked loose and lifted up. Had to get it relaid -- what a mess. Have had a couple of wood floors -- they are OK, but they show the wear (and abuse).

We got a thick laminate that looks like big tile. It comes in 50" planks (at least I think they were that long) and they can get cut to the right dimension. It's a click and place - no glue, no staples, no nails and it feels good under foot. It is called Swiftlock. Some people gave it a bad review - that it was hard to install. Must have been newbies - we found it extremely easy.

What I don't like about "real" tile is that dishes have no chance of survival when they fall.

I always dreamed of haveing ceramic tile in the kitchen. I can't tell you how many chips and cracks it has now and there's only two of us and the hounds and none of us is that clumsy. I now wish I had vinyl flooring in the kitchen. We have hardwood floors everywhere else and they're wonderful. The only place I love my ceramic tile is in the family room downstairs where the dogs are in and out all day long. Cleans up beautifully and we apparently don't drop as much downstairs.

I've had hard wood and I've had tile. You can seal the grout to keep it from collecting too much dirt. The hard wood dings up when you drop things and the things still break. The hard wood is a bit warmer looking. You do have to worry about water with the hard wood. When you pick a tile, look at the boxes at the store - are there broken tiles in the box? If so they might be prone to breaking. Can you take a quarter drag it across a tile and make a scrape in the tile?

I know wooden floors in the kitchen is the 'thing' now. I have ceramic tile and think it is great. I can spill all over, and it cleans up quickly with no fuss.

Wood! Much softer to stand on. I work in my kitchen a lot. Especially in the summer during canning season. My last house had tile floors over concrete subfloor. Thought I was going to die with back ache and hip pain. We have wood here and wood subfloors. Standing for long periods of time is still no picnic but soooooo much better. Don't need several days to recoup. And if you drop something it doesn't necessarily break. Always broke in the previous home. Also, we have maple floors which sustain very little dinging. I think that only bamboo is harder but I may be wrong. Maple is harder than oak. If you really want to do yourself a favor go with cork! Very soft to stand on and waterproof. Ann in TN