We bought a house that has laminate in the public areas - entryway, living area, dining room and kitchen. Costco is running a great sale on some good laminate and we'd like to put laminate in the rest of the house. However, they don't have a color that's an exact match for our existing laminate. The color we like best is similar, but maybe doesn't contrast enough. That brings me to question number one: Does anyone have pictures of good use of two similarly colored floorings next to each other?

We're considering putting tile or slate in the entryway to serve as a barrier between the public area laminate and the new laminate in the rest of the house. Our entryway is roughly 8' x 4' and my wife isn't a huge fan of having a small rectangle of tile surrounded by wood laminate, so we're considering running the tile from the entryway down the hallway and transitioning to the new laminate where the hallway comes to a T that all of the back rooms connect to. We're worried, however, that it might look weird to transition floor types in a hallway intersection. We'd appreciate any advice!

Here's a picture of the view you see when first entering the front door. This is from the entryway, and the hallway I've mentioned is off to the right (where you see the carpet).

...and a view down the hallway from the entryway. We're considering extending whatever tile we put in the entryway (if we go that route) down the first part of the hallway and transitioning to new laminate in the perpendicular hallway at the end.