Is there a reason you need/want new flooring?

The tile actually looks fine with all the other current elements, so I wouldn't spend money replacing tile with vinyl tile.

If you were going to replace the tile with the same hardwood, to get one consistent flooring throughout the house, then that might be worth spending money on.

Mostly I hate the grout . And maybe tired of squares. I thought about matching hardwood but a friend of mine ( who is a stager) said since there are step downs into two different rooms it’s a fall hazard…she said people can’t see it’s a step down if it’s the same flooring ..

Before you replace your current tile floor, you should try cleaning it with these two items:

Electric rotating scrub brush (there are a ton of them on Amazon - they start around $30 - and then there are more expensive ones - however, we tried one that was around $32 and one that was about $55 - I'm not sure there was much of a difference):

Plus, use this with the above scrubber:

Make sure that you purchase the paste - not the sprayer one. The paste works so much better.

My sister had tile that looked similar to yours in her previous home (I think her former house was built in 2002?) It was 12 x 12 tile (that was the trend at that time - I'm so happy that I put wood floors in my home - including the kitchen and the powder room).

She was getting it ready to sell it - and we used the above and it made a HUGE change in how her tile looked. It no longer had that "grid look" to it. I was trying to find a photo - but I must have deleted them. The results were like the two photos below:

Once we did a large section, we ordered more Pink Stuff + another scrubber (which I now have) - she had a lot of tile (foyer/dining room/very large kitchen with hearth room connected to it/powder room/laundry room/two bathrooms upstairs (not the primary bathroom) - so, we needed a second scrubber to make it go faster (although it wasn't a huge deal - we listened to music and got to spend some time together just by ourselves which doesn't happen very often!)

When we finished the kitchen, she no longer felt like she needed to replace the tile. Even though the person (couple) who purchased her home would most likely rather have wood floors running throughout the open concept main floor, with they way the tile floors now looked, he/she/they wouldn't feel like the tile immediately needed to be replaced.

These next photos are ones I pulled off of the reviews on Amazon for The Pink Stuff (without using the electric scrubber - the scrubber makes it much less work for you):

The floor on the right side of the above photo looks so much better than the tile on the left side.

You can see which area of the tile has been cleaned in the below photo. The grout lines are back to their original color + the tile no longer has dark areas where dirt has become embedded in little crevices in the tile.

Getting rid of the "grid look" will make a BIG difference on how your floors look. I would try that prior to replacing the tile. You don't have to do all of your tile before making a decision - but you do need to do a large enough section in order to see how much better the tile will look once all the grout lines blend in with the tile. Plus, even if you mop your tiles often, you'll be surprised how many little crevices hold onto dirt - which the two products will remove.

It's kind of addicting to use the Pink Stuff and the rotating cleaner once you see how much of a difference they make. I used it to clean my oven (it was pretty clean to start - but looked like new once I used the above products). I used both to clean a grease spot (pretty sure it was lotion) on a new pair of nice canvas tennis shoes - spot gone. I then used it to clean the white rubber parts on some other sneakers just because I saw in the reviews how well the Pink Stuff worked to clean sneakers!

We also used the scrubber with the microfiber pad to clean all of her mirrors perfectly. We also used both products to remove marks on walls (her one daughter had used some markers on a wall in her closet several years ago - and it removed them!) You do need to be careful which scrub head you use on paint.

It makes you want to scrub everything 😂 Seriously! You don't have to add pressure down on the scrubber for it to work (in fact, you are not supposed to push down on the scrubber - you are supposed to let it do it's job without force from you).

I even cleaned the floor to ceiling (vaulted) double windows in the breakfast nook area of my kitchen! I did the outside first because that made the biggest difference (it was spring - so, they needed to be cleaned after winter). I've never cleaned those windows before (I hire someone to clean the outside of all of the windows every spring + my house cleaner will do the inside of my windows once in awhile).

Feel free to ignore all of the above if you are set on replacing your tile floors. I just was so surprised at how nice my sister's floors looked after we did the above, I thought I'd pass the idea on to you.

Thanks for the idea! I actually have some of that pink stuff I use for other things . Did you slather the paste directly onto the grout before you scrubbed?

Yeah maybe luxury vinyl tile... like a light, warm neutral vinyl or darker charcoal/slate look?

Why do you want to get rid of the current tile though?

I would certainly try cleaning the tiles or refreshing the grout with a grout colourant and sealer product. Use a quality product such as Mapei, they have about 40 - 50 colours to choose from. I once had charcoal tiles installed in my kitchen and wanted charcoal grout but the contractor had done it in a light gray. There was no time to do anything except use the grout refresh in charcoal and it was perfect for years. You can see a video of how it's done on the Mapei website.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/e4HZt4019N0?rel=0&controls=1&showinfo=0

I put some of the pink stuff on the tiles/grout - and then used the rotating scrubber. You could try using a stiff toothbrush with just The Pink Stuff. However, the paste + the rotating scrubber worked the best. It really makes a big difference - especially because it removes the grid look = the 12x12 square tile shape from being so highlighted by the dark grout lines.

If the original grout was a dark color (which is highly unlikely) then it won't make a big difference - and you could use a grout colorant to get rid of the dark lines. People seemed to use either grout that matched/blended with the tile or was a bit lighter than the tile.

Some people will have their tile professionally cleaned - but it can be expensive + this worked so well that it didn't make sense - just time devoted to doing it. You don't appear to have nearly as much tile as my sister did!

Grout renew.

I've had some luck with steam cleaning my own grout. I had a similar shade of tile in my old house (entry, kitchen, etc) and I borrowed a steam cleaner from a friend and took on blasting the grime out of the grout and it made a big difference. You can also have it professionally done, though I have no experience with that. Potentially you could also scrape out the grout and re-grout, though that would be a lot more effort.

This is a close up of grout before / after steam cleaning. Lower left is the "before" and upper right is the "after". (Hopefully this image is attaching correctly.)

I'm hoping to do the same to the grout in my new house. I now have slate instead of light ceramic, but the grout is visibly dirty.

You start by ripping out the tile no other flooring can go on top . First it raises the floor too much to allow applainces to sit properly for sure the DW and also not level with the other floors. I think the cleaning of the grout is great idea for a simple solution anything else will cost $$$$ ,time a ahuge mess. If the cahnge has to happen I would do floor to match the other flooring for a much nicer look. Get unfinished same species wood and have it finished to match

The sound and feel underfoot are completely different between vinyl types. I tested versions with and without the insulation layer, and only after talking to the team at Absolute Floors did I realize that some planks can actually be installed over existing tile. They gave me SPC and WPC samples, I tested them under both warm and cool light, and ended up choosing a “warm ash” tone that matches perfectly with the reddish hardwood.