Slate. It looks nice with wood floors and it's different without being trendy. I don't care for the tile mixes with a lot of color variation, they can look too busy.

Also, your house sounds lovely. Please share pictures!

I like slate too.

@deegw I am in love with my little farmhouse. It is currently not much to look at but I have attached some pictures. I have essentially deconstructed the interior in order to regain access to the best parts which were covered up years ago. We took it down to the studs and pulled out ancient insulation which had been blown into the walls around 1960 - there were mouse nests in there! We have tried to "mouse-proof" the walls and had to do some repairs to the structure here and there. I added some headroom to the stairs so people over 5'6" don't have to duck to go up the stairs...things like that. I am going to put the original wood plank walls back up in select areas. One wall, which is interior and still intact, has been wallpapered with wood grain wallpaper. Who wallpapers a wooden wall with wood grain wallpaper?? That wall is along the stairs and is essentially 2 stories high, so getting that wallpaper off will be a project. I'm also renovating the bathrooms. They were redone by someone recently, so there is nothing quaint worth saving there. It has been interesting getting rid of the layers - When we pulled up the carpet and subfloor in one bedroom, we found wide mismatched planks of wood for flooring - not your typical wood flooring like in the rest of the house. When we pulled them up (because we needed to reinforce the floor without disturbing the original ceiling below), we found old newspaper glued to the underside. It was hard to read, but I could make out "God speed" "run its war" and "be for allied" which was neat. Wish I knew the story on this was under the floor.

I think a uniform slate for the mudroom is a great idea. Plus, I already have slate pavers on a pathway outside, so that will tie in! They are the uniform dark type, not multi-colored. I've attached some "work in progress" pics. With the mudroom decided, any opinion on the tile for the laundry room? I picked something I liked but would love any other opinions on that...also would like opinions on ideas for the bathrooms.

Here is the exposed chimney and some original walls and ceiling (covered in soot, I think?) The tiny door (removed for now) goes under the stairs. I put in new white oak floors over the original. The original floor was really in bad shape and there was no subfloor. I would love to have been able to refinish the original floor but it was all wonky and cut up from when radiators were installed. One cut was 3'x4' -- huge! (no radiators were left when I bought the house, but all the boiler equipment was still in the basement.)

Removing carpet from a bedroom.

Mouse tunnels! We got rid of that grossness and put in new insulation. Also sistered some beams to improve floor stiffness above.

Work in progress - peeling back layers. This landing was covered in carpet. The wall to the left was covered in the 1970s paneling you see straight ahead and then that was covered in drywall, so the trim around doors was basically flush with the wall from all the layers.

Here is what we found under the stairs when we removed the 1970s paneling that made a little closet. Who closes in a closet and leaves trash? That's all it was - trash. I was hoping for a cool time capsule. Or treasure. :-) Oh well...

Here is the possible tile option for the laundry - next to a kitchen cabinet that will be the same color as the laundry cabinets.

Here is the same tile actually in the laundry room - next to a salvaged door that will go in this pocket. Tile is in a different layout. I'm not sure which is better or if there is a better option....thoughts?

PS - just for fun - here are some pics of what I found in the barn. There is also an old wall mount kitchen sink and a wood stove in the barn, which I assume came out of the house at some point.

Another vote for slate; I'd probably use it for any place where the oak won't work. A farm house wouldn't have had many flooring options.

For the mudroom I would do linoleum, a natural material. It comes in tiles and sheets. You can have interesting patterns cut into it. Its been around for over a hundred years.

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@houssaon thanks for the idea! I had not considered that /wasn't aware of linoleum's history. Fascinating! I now realize some of the scraps we found that were used to shim up the wonky wood floor under the carpet were probably really vintage. they were crazy colorful floral patterns. I wish I had taken pictures! they were trapped in a way that was absorbing moisture from underneath the house and were really stinky so we threw them out. I have put down a vapor barrier to stop that with the new floor.

after considering the pros and cons of linoleum, I think my pets (claws) may be an issue with this type of floor, but it is an excellent suggestion!

@Is1114 thank you so much for this info! I will check out Tarkett. I love that it is a green product. I'm trying to avoid VOCs. thanks for sharing!

We used a slate look porcelain tile for our mud room and kitchen. We bought a little extra tile to keep the color variation to a minimum.

@shivece What tile did you use? do you have a source? do you think it really looks like slate? I like how slate has some texture to it as opposed to a completely smooth surface that is printed with a slate image. any chance you could share a pic?