Just did my dining room and kitchen in the wood look porcelain tile and we love it!!

Tiles are more durable than vinyl.

The really look alike vinyl is soooo expensive. Is it more expensive than the tile? Or are they the same?

The wood look tiles certainly look like wood with many options to choose from. I personally still want the real deal. Tile is cold, hard and noisy. Area rugs will help with that but the same could be done with wood floors.

Don't forget about the possibility of putting heating under tile! That would provide great warmth during colder times. Not sure you can do the heated floors with vinyl. But on the other hand grout creates areas for dirt to collect so vinyl is easier to keep clean. Also tile is harder, vinyl is more comfortable if you're standing in the kitchen for long periods. Finally, consider height. If you add tile you'll possibly need to add cement board under the tile, plus the adhesive and tile - this can create quite a height difference between the new flooring and whatever flooring it meets up with elsewhere in the house.

Where are you located, I just requested some samples from Builders Direct.com and received it in the mail for free. The sales people that are recommending the differences why are they not giving you prices. I was also in Porcelanosa, Miami and they currently have some of their wood tiles on sale. I have dogs and choosing to go all tiles myself. They look really good. Wood tiles today went roughly from $2.25 to $10.95.

We're building new so change in flooring height won't be an issue(shouldn't be!) I thought about it being so hard to stand on in the kitchen and noisy since we're planning to use it in a large area. Pricing isn't a huge issue for us right now(but $10 would probably be a no-go). We're going to the builder with our finishes selected so we don't get those super low allowances that will kill our budget later. I have been so looking forward to building our house but now the choices are killing me!!! :-) Thanks everyone for the opinions.

And we live in Southeast Texas so heating the floor isn't really necessary. We almost welcome the cool floor! :-)

I'm from Texas as well, and when we build we will totally be getting the wood look tile. You can tint the grout lines to match the tile, so it blends in. I love it so much more than the stained concrete floors that EVERYBODY in Texas seems to be doing now. Home Depot actually has some good-looking choices.

Just a thought. If you want wood then using something else may leave you with regrets later. I have 3 Dobermans and our house is the hang out place for the kids. We have only wood floors on the entire first floor including the kitchen. Never had a problem. Wood floors can be refinished if necessary. Sorry but fake is fake

LM, I'm with you on the regrets. I have a feeling the regrets could go either way. :-/ Angela, I'll check out the website. Always looking for savings!

Any updates

Nothing yet, Angela. And thanks for the Builders Direct tip! I'll update when we decide...eventually. :-)