Bestyears, I must have missed your earlier thread. What's wrong with your existing hardwood flooring? It looks good to me. Unless you want to change it for other reasons.

I would only have tile in the bathrooms and laundry room, or an entryway (e.g., mudroom) that gets a lot of muddy or wet foot traffic. If you want to replace your existing wood floor, I'd still have wood and not tile.

What is the BC?

For your entry, kitchen and laundry room my choice would be brick, using a small area rug in the foyer. The half bath would be an extension of whatever flooring is in the hallway that leads to it. Upstairs bathroom = tile. You really can’t i prove on tile in baths.

For the tireplace I would do a combination of brick and hand colored and fired tiles according to your taste and style. Ann Sacks has great decorative tiles, among many others.

Bunny - there are two issues with the existing floor. First, I have never loved the way it looks butting up against the Brazilian Cherry. There is a four-foot-wide doorway into the family room where the BC is, and I've just never, never liked the way it looks. The second issue is that the kitchen floor (laminate) has not held up well at all. There are numerous deep scratches, a few places where I damaged it with the steam mop (my fault), and places where the finish just seems to have worn off.

Kswl -I'm really intrigued by your idea of brick and 'hand-colored tiles,' -neither of which I believe I've seen around here. Would you by chance have any specific recommendations -i.e. do you mean real brick, or some kind of brick manufactured to be used as flooring? I've always loved the look of brick floors, but am mostly accustomed to seeing genuine, old brick floors in very old homes. Thank you!

We are 11 years in with our Amtico flooring and are still very happy with it...easy to maintain, looks great, not as delicate or clattering as laminate, but not cheap to install. Still, I'd do it again in a heart beat. New visitors are amazed that it's vinyl and will often touch it because they don't believe it..

As nice as brick looks, I cannot even imagine standing on it to cook. Is there any reason you don't just extend the cherry into the kitchen and then pick a tile for areas you want to update? Wood floors, with the right finish, are extremely durable in kitchens. If you can find a patterned tile you love, it could work in the bath and laundry, but again, I wouldn't want to stand on tile in the kitchen (if you do much cooking at all).
I would never butt wood look vinyl up next to real wood, it just would be too obvious.

If you’re interested in doing wood again, wide plank European or French oak is really popular right now, which means there are multiple vendors and a ton of styles & colors to choose. It also looks amazing with coordinating herringbone or chevron floors. If you’re looking for something for something more formal then walnut/acacia is gorgeous and much more affordable as engineered. Their natural colors are much easier to decorate with. I had a great experience with https://www.heidelbergflooring.com

For my back entry/utility areas I found a beautiful porcelain by del Conca that looks just like Belgian bluestone.
https://www.delconcausa.com/prodotti/chamonix_223/

You have laminate in the kitchen? Well no wonder it hasn’t held up and doesn’t look good against the Brazilian cherry.

It looks as though you have a beautiful home. Bite the bullet and extend the cherry everywhere except the bathroom(s) and utility areas.

And throw the steam mop away.

I've always liked the look of slate or slate look tiles next to hardwood floors. Not the heavily variegated versions with the rusts and the greens, they are too bossy.

I would probably look at something that was all the same for those areas and I would also consider Amtico (Their American site is through Mannington.) They have some decent looking stone patterns and the tile sizes can be customized in various sizes and laying patterns. The reason I would consider it is because of the kitchen. I would not want stone in the kitchen (I stand on VCT covered concrete all day long) and I don't think you would get a good match with the existing Brazilian Cherry if you replaced the rest with that.

To answer a few of the questions raised:

The steam mop was tossed years ago -but too late!

I don't want to extend the BC into the kitchen because it scratches and I want a floor that is easier to maintain. (That's the reason we didn't put BC in the kitchen earlier). We have a dog (and often two granddogs here). One of them quite liberally slops his water all over the floor no matter what we've tried. The others chase balls, skid into the cabinets, scramble to get their claws under them, etc. -I'm a nutcase whose life is so enriched by their antics that I have no desire to curb them. But I would like a floor that is easier to maintain.

I have exhausted myself for over a year now, trying to find something wood or wood-like to butt up next to the Brazilian Cherry. I've just tossed out no less than 100 samples I've accumulated, and I've finally given up. I've chased so many sure bets and as soon as I plop it down next to the BC, it's obvious it won't work. So I've settled on some kind of stone or stone look. I'm more than happy to go with a quality luxury vinyl product that mimics stone. I just haven't found the right color yet (that's where you guys come in!). I understand the concern about standing on stone in a kitchen. I have a gel mat at my sink and if necessary can put one in front of my island where I do food prep.

The tile I select doesn't have to all be the same, but given that we are doing these rooms all together, it seems like a good opportunity to get some cohesiveness.

FYI, the color of my amtico is brazilian rosewood....I like the stone with it. They have so many to choose from now...more than when I was selecting them. But the advantages are many: durable, easy to clean, never needs sealing or grouting, cushioned so easier under foot and warmer and quieter than real stone, and glasses won't shatter when dropped like they would on stone.

If you only have the BC in that small area, why don't you go ahead and replace it with the same flooring throughout? It's limiting your choices for the rest of the flooring and you don't like the maintenance.

Remind me again, where is the Brazilian Cherry and how big of an area is it compared to the rest. So it touches the kitchen and the foyer?

I’ve had wide oak floors in my kitchen for 15 years. It’s still beautiful, a little scratch and ding here and there, but it doesn‘t matter to me. my daughter has a 90 lb dog who visits and gets the zoomies and does fast spins and stops. the floor holds up.

The BC is not a small area. It's our entire family room (which butts up to kitchen in a wide, open doorway) and the dining room and two small halls and the stairs.

Thanks for the info.

The other problem is that you'll have to put cement board under tile and that will raise the floor slightly above the height of the BC. You've probably seen the divider strips used between hardwood and tile. I call them speed bumps.

We have wood floors (oak) in the main living areas and bedrooms. In our kitchen and bathrooms we have high quality laminate that has a tile-like design. I love it. I like the look of tile, but it is too cold, too hard and I have grout issues LOL. This is so easy to care for. I do use a steam mop on the laminate! I have done so for years. I checked with the information from the manufacturer before doing so. I have very low (almost) no arches. I have had to quit going barefoot at home all the time (my legs were aching). While I love the look of brick and stone, I don't think I could ever have it.

I don't think you are going to find something wood or wood-like that will look good with the BC. IMHO, 2 woods butted up against each other rarely look right. Good luck!

Tinamarie, would you mind sharing your laminate with the tile-like design? I agree with you on not finding a wood or wood look that will work with the BC.

I can get a picture for you later, but I do not have info on it.

Bestyears, the brick is basically a thin slice of a full brick (with no holes, obviously) that is laid and grouted. In kitchens and other places where they are likely to get wet the bricks are usually sealed. LynnNM’s entire floor is sealed brick and absolutely beautiful. We had brick floors in our renovated basement, stair hall amd wine cellar. They were zero maintenance. For comfort I would probably use a nice but not too expensive runner with a pad inthe kitchen in areas where you stand. We never felt the floors were too hard or stiff and they felt nothing like concrete.

Here are a few of the tiles I’ve been looking at:

Adore this one!

and a companion to it:

Here is the same field tile in a different color (one of many)

And here are a few others…the variety of colors and shapes is spectacular

The thing I like about your current foyer tile and fireplace tile is that they both have a slightly pink undertone that really complements the Brazilian cherry.

The unfortunate news for you is that pink undertone is not very popular right now, or at least, I don’t think they are — so it’s going to be harder to find floors that veer that way. Actually it’s just really hard to find any floor that’s not a cool gray undertone especially mass market.

I would look for things labeled, like, travertine. Or, as suggested upthread, I would go for a slate that is quite dark and will go with everything. Actually, you can find mixed slates and slate substitutes with quite a bit of red mixed in - that would also be complementary and hide the dirt better than a flat charcoal slate.

First pic is a travertine look tile which looks quite neutral but has a peachy pink undertone. Second and third are slate look tiles with red.

Here you go:

Thank you all so much! It's funny, as I was perusing today, I kept finding myself drawn to pale terracotta tiles -I love anything that looks ancient and has a handhewn look. I'd have to buy a few and lay them down to really decide how that would play with my Costa Esmeralda granite counters. And then I've also been looking at slate, both the solid gray and ones with some copper and blue/green tones. I saw some stunning ones, but again, I'm wondering how it will play with the Costa Esmeralda. Robo, I think your analysis is spot on, and you're right there is a pink undertone in the foyer/fp tile. I've been wondering about travertine, because it seems like it had its day and nobody is doing it anymore, but really, that shouldn't be a reason to steer away from it if it works. I've never loved the wide grout lines they seem to use around here with travertine and don't know if that's just custom or there is a reason for it.

I'm in Austin at our lakehouse right now and going to see about an Ann Sacks showroom. DD, who lives here, is a PM for a very high end home renovation company and may be able to steer me toward some places as well where I could see some brick veneer, travertine, slate, etc. Starting to get excited! Thank you all again!

Here is part of the tear sheet for the Chamonix tiles showing the colorways. I’d recommend the beige for you, but I used the dark grey (almost black) next to my white oak and love it.