I should add that the living room which is around the corner from the kitchen has hardwood flooring that is darker than the kitchen

I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time understanding what it is you are looking to do. "Using the same floor throughout" is the same as "using same flooring in both rooms", is it not?

Do you want to know if you should extend the dark hardwood through to all rooms...even though it is darker than the kitchen wood?

I would start asking some basic questions such as: what are your future plans for the kitchen? Are you looking to continue renovations over the next 7 years? Are you planning to upgrade your home home step by step? Or are you looking to ONLY replace the carpeting in the dining area?

If you are at the beginning of YEARS of renovations, you might want to take 2-3 weeks and concentrate on your DESIRED OUTCOME. Take a large amount of time to plan the END LOOK. Once you have that vision (you will take the time to create a story board that includes paint chips, photos of counter tops that you admire and inspiration photos of whole kitchens. Noting the colour of the floor, cabinets, lighting, flooring etc). Once you have done the "imagination" work (with supporting story board = road map for success), you can now go ahead and make step by step changes.

Because of the dark hardwoods in the other part of the home AND the dark kitchen, I would suggest you stay away from dark wood flooring in the kitchen...as it is today.

If you want to leave the kitchen as is for another 10-15 years, I suggest you leave the kitchen floor as it is (light floor in a dark kitchen is your best situation = what you have right now). You can extend the dark hardwood into the dining area...but it will be hitting some very dark cabinets.

Without changing the kitchen, you have some very limited choices for flooring that will "look good" and look "cohesive". What are your 5-7 year renovation plans? I think that is where you need to start before you start throwing money at the flooring.

You're right my question was not at all clear. I'm wondering if I should use the same flooring in the kitchen that I use in the family dining room combination or should I put something different in the kitchen? We plan to eventually renovate both rooms entirely but we are rather slow at getting things done due to lack of time and money. But I cannot live with the grungy carpet in the family dining room anymore.

Okay get the carpet cleaned and work on the kichen redo first because IMO the floor should be the same all through the main living area the other way is to get enough flooring to do the kitchen later and get unfinished flooring so that it can all be stained to match what you already have.

You could use a 12" X 24" textured porcelain tile laid in a running bond pattern in the two areas (kitchen & family/dining) areas. Go with a light color as it cleans very easily.