The second to the last photo is a neutral ivory tile I could do if a wood look won't work. I don't like my current tile because of the large grout lines, and it has pits in it that catch the dirt. it is also too beige for the quartz. if I went with a LVP I would probably lay it over the sunken living room floor.

You currently have REAL wood on the stairs and a faux wood (wood-look tile) in the sunken living room. They are separate so the visual doesn't matter. But adding another wood-look anything is going to be 2 wood-look floors too many.

Please work with a tile or stone-look porcelain that work with your kitchen tones. Replace all the tile you don't like with new tile that looks like tile or stone...you do not need another wood-look in this home.

Your kitchen now reads gray...which means any gold wood tone is going to have a bit of a hard time anyway. You might as well go with tones that work with the counter top.

I understand I can't add another wood look. I was wondering if I can bring the living room wood look tile up to the rest of the down stairs. can I soften the effects of the wood stairs with some one paint and a runner?

white

You do not want fake-wood up against real wood. It cheapens both of them. And the counter top reads too gray for the wood-look tile anyways. Where would you stop the wood look tiles? And how old are the wood-tiles? Anything older than 18 months and you run the risk of never being able to find more.

The way you figure out how a counter top reads is by standing 10feet back. If it 'looks' gray then that is the tone you want to work with. Your photos (at a distance) make the counters and the backsplash look cold gray.

The tile is available from Arizona Tile in e Savannah collection called honey. I picked it because of the gold hue for the stairs but it also has gray tones. but I understand it doesn't work well with my stairs.

Does the color in the second to last picture look like it will work?

I am planning to put the new floor over the whole downstairs, except perhaps the sunken livingroom.

If I went ahead with the engineered wood, something to try to match the staircase, will the honey tones look bad with the quartz? Don't people use warm real wood with a cooler counter? Is that a way to solve this dilemma? I wanted to add warmth to the space.

It is possible to use real wood in a white-on-white-on-white kitchen. That shouldn't be a problem. The only way to decide is to purchase a box and then place it on the floor in BOTH settings (at the base of the stair case and at the base of the island) and then step back 10 feet. If you see a clash at 10 ft then you know it won't work.

And when evaluating a colour 'match' you need to see the match through all 5 lighting situations (early morning, mid morning, afternoon, evening and night). Once you have seen the colours through all 5 situations, you will be able to decide how well something will work.

If you are going to do the full-lighting spectrum, it helps to have multiple samples in the same experiment. At least one of the samples will tap out in one or more of the lighting settings. Each time an item starts to clash, you remove it from the experiment. At some point you will get down to one or two options. At that point, you then decide on which of the two you like the most.

But first, the experiments must begin. Remember: 10 feet.

Thank you very much for that information!

I cannot help you with your flooring decision, but I would like to say: Nice Corgi!! I have 2 myself. Whatever you get, make sure the fur blends in! ;)

An encaustic tile look that mixes grey with beige might work:
https://www.houzz.com/products/encaustic-design-gray-andwhite-8x8-set-of-29-prvw-vr~126030714