I also love faux bois!!! In this kitchen and the adjoining room wood is the predominant material and I think a wood floor, even simulated is overkill. One of the easiest floors I have worked with in kitchens is cork. It is easy on the feet and easy to keep. It is lightweight for your structural concerns and environmentally sustainable. It is also available in many colors and patterns and is incredibly durable. You can have it laid like in patterns such as herringbone or basketweave, interesting designs using different colors, or like plank flooring. It repels allergens,is quiet and less likely to break a plate if you drop it. That being said, you should wipe up a spill fairly quickly as it is somewhat absorbant and if you have an untrained pet, well forget it. IIf you like the cork you can find one that picks up the greys in your walls and counters and has honey highlights to pick up the cabinetry and tie it all together. I am attaching a couple of photos to give you an idea of the variety that is available. Have fun with it and enjoy the process!

this is the Porcelain wood look tile we recently had installed in January. Absolutely love it. We have Northern exposure in our kitchen and the whole back of our house, so it's a bright room when it's sunny. The cabinets should be installed by end of week, but not the counters, I'll post how it turned out. We have too much in and out from the back yard, garden and garage into our kitchen and laundry room to install wood floors. The rest of our house has wood floors and it's fine.

We too have a mid- to higher-level home with mostly hardwood floors (but also a stained concrete floor in a "great room" addition). At the center of it all is a galley kitchen, with connecting powder room and mud room, that for 20+ years have been covered in a high quality Wilsonart laminate. Its realistic "red oak" planks have fooled countless visitors and tradesmen over the years who complimented us on taking such good care of our wood floors. (It's in "better shape" than our ACTUAL wood floors.) When installed, a luan type wood sheet was put over an older plywood subfloor and then the foam underlayment. Never an issue with leveling or squeaks, so I'm hoping that prep for a new floor will be straightforward. However, due to some water damage (slightly raised plank edges) over the years (around the toilet, near the sink) it's finally time to replace it. We'd like to avoid the potential water damage issue again, so are looking at LVT. To the point made by others, when we go to good flooring stores (including the one that sold/installed the Wilsonart floor 20 years ago), the displays and salespeople overwhelmingly push LVT. I like the look well enough, but think I might miss the ever-present, satin sheen of the old laminate. LVT seems "matte or flat" no matter what and I see issues with water spot, which is ever present in our kitchen. We don't have dogs and our boisterous boys no longer clamber through the kitchen on skates. We're empty nesters and hope to get through another 5-7 years before we sell the place; the buyers will almost certainly be a young upwardly mobile family looking for neutral if not trendy decor. However, a medium oak finish will still be what matches the rest of the home's floors and woodwork the best. We've seen some finishes in Coretec One and a few others that are a decent match. What do you think...should we fall in with the LVT plank gang?

I purchased nucore flagstone vinyl planking only because it had the color I wanted BUT wish I went with lifeproof instead even if it was a color I liked less. It's advertised as scratch resistant. It is NOT SCRATCH RESISTANT. We take our shoes off 99% of the time when we come inside and have felt pads on all furniture yet when I sweep, I always find random scratches. To me that's just normal wear and tear. We do have 3 toddlers but they're not running around with anything sharp enough to cut. And I think it's shady that floor and decor wont let you review their products. And they never respond to emails from their site. So disappointed that a big company like floor and decor