we had old oak flooring in our old house and used new oak in the kitchen. the floors looked very uniform when we finished. so wood would be my first choice but if you really don't want to go that route i like your idea to use slate.
i have a slate-look porcelain in our mudroom i really like. got it at best tile.
{{gwi:1510460}}

Well...I personally like wood, and I like having the same floor surface throughout, so if I were you, I would probably put down wood, and refinish the old floors at the same time so it all matched. But, if you want tile, in a 1934 house, I personally would do large black and white tile. I think it would look really authentic.

I had the old oak floors in my '29 Tudor refinished (and in some spots re-exposed) to match new stuff in the kitchen. A good floor guy can handle it. But I'd do linoleum. That is probably what was originally there. Plus I like it. :)

A good floor guy can match old with new and create a uniform look.
But not everyone wants wood in their kitchen. You may
love the idea of a tile floor. Here are some ideas...
~boxer

Limestone

DIY Dkim 104

daltile Continental slate

Slate floor tile

White kitchens with dark counter or soapstone and tile floors.

Randl Bye Kitchen designer contractor

Randl Bye

Abruzzo

The State of Things

Kitchen in Montclair

Soapstone counters

Elle Decor

Markham Kitchen

Old Homes New life

We have an old home (1910) with oak flooring and are doing a white kitchen with soapstone, too. As others have said, you can put in new flooring and having everything refinished/finished to match. That was what we planned to do, and in fact, we bought the oak to do it. Later we had second thoughts about it, but I can't really explain why. I like the look of wood in other people's similar kitchens, but we decided to go with slate. :o)

We chose a honed finish rather than the more typical natural cleft type. Ours is called Montauk Black, and despite its name, it's a beautiful charcoal grey. I love it. It doesn't compete with the soapstone since it's pretty uniform in color (although I should mention that our soapstone is pretty quiet anyway).

Our tile will be going in as early as next week, so I'll try to post some pictures soon. If you search google images, you'll see lots of examples. There are also lots of porcelain and ceramic tiles that look Iike slate if you don't want to use natural stone.

Worldmom I would love to see pics, too when you get a chance. I am in a similar situation. Old house, dont want to do wood because I dont like the red oak that was installed on the first floor of the rest of the house and not sure if a completely different wood would look weird. Will have white cabs and soapstone.
Love the Montauk Black, but was concerned that it would either be too dark, or match the soapstone too much.
I was thinging I would just have to end up with a neutral beige tile.
Will the honed finish be slippery when wet? Definitely want to avoid that when picking tile. My last kitchen had ceramic that turned into an ice rink when wet.

Wow! Thank you so much for the images. They all looks great. Don't see how we can go wrong with any of these styles.

We too have just about completed a kitchen in a 1923 house. We decided to go black & white. Like worldmom we decidede on Montauk Black slate. ous is 24"x24" but natural cleft. Here's a mid construction shot.
The floor will darken somewhat after it is sealed.

Here are a couple of pictures of our tile. We ordered Montauk Black samples from a couple of different places, but everything we received was definitely more grey than black (which is what we were hoping). The sample we looked at in the tile showroom, however, was definitely black.

The first is a shot next to my daughter's solid black dance pants, but don't tell her I had them on our filthy floor! ;o) The next is against our white pantry walls. Our soapstone is essentially black when oiled, so we felt the grey floor would be be a nice mid-way color. The grey also ties in nicely with the grey in our carrera marble (our island and pantry tops).

Hopefully I'll be able to post pics of the whole floor soon!

Any more details on this floor. Is it black and grey marble?

I'm on my second kitchen remodel (did the first on a shoestring budget 10 years ago) on our 1942 home. We decided to use ceramic tile the first time around figuring it would be easiest to keep clean and could handle a water spill. Would never do tile in kitchen again. It is too hard to stand on for long periods of time, bad on the joint as we age. We're going with hardwood this time around. The floor guys match the finish so well you won't know the difference.

Does anyone know what kind of material was used in the picture above?

http://s620.photobucket.com/albums/tt283/boxerpups22/White%20kitchens/?action=view&current=RandlBye4.jpg