We have hard wood in our entire house and really no maintenance. Most of the floors are original (80+ years old) and are in good shape. I used to have tile and liked that but it was so hard on your joints. If the wood is finished properly it is so easy to keep clean and hides a lot. Just don't get a very dark finish, which tends to show a lot of dust.

Tile is hard on bodies, and on anything that is dropped. I decided to tear out the tile in my kitchen one day when a glass bowl shattered into a bazillion pieces which landed as far as 8 feet away. I really appreciated the comfort difference when we put in wood, even though we are on a slab foundation.

OTOH, things that are dropped are hard on wood. My floors have tons of "patina" - scratches and dents from silverware, table legs, and all kinds of other things. I don't care, I'd rather replace or refinish them someday than replace my knees and hips.

Tile is very difficult and messy to have removed/replaced. I would much prefer to buy a house with any other kind of flooring.

Agree with kksmama. I come from a family of tile contractors so up until about 10 years ago all of my kitchen floors were some sort of tile. It is VERY hard on the body especially if you are like me and tend to stand a lot while prepping and cooking meals. And it is totally unforgiving...dropping anything breakable is the kiss of death!

We went back and forth as to which flooring to lay in this current remodel: wood or laminate. We had laminate in the kitchen before and we loved the look and feel of it. The products have come such a long way since we installed that Pergo back in the 90s. We found one that is a dead-ringer for aged barn wood. We knew the second we saw it we wanted it for the whole house. No maintenance and easy on the joints...happy happy :)

This is our third house with site finished hardwood everywhere, except baths/laundry. When we bought this one we ripped out the carpet upstairs and replaced with hardwood. I did do a wood-look porcelain tile in the guest house because it functions as a man-cave & teen hangout, but more importantly I don't go out there enough to catch any spills that the "men" might cause and not clean up.

Hardwood has no additional maintenance compared to other floors. They all need to be cleaned, spills need to be mopped up and they all require some maintenance at some point in time.

I wanted the wood on the renno, DH nixed it for tile. He wouldn't even consider LVT. The floor material is the only thing he has pushed back on.

FWIW - we had tile in the old space for 20 years and just had my right hip replaced in April. My left hip was replaced in June 2011. Don't know if was the tile, genetics, age or a mix of each.

We have bamboo throughout the kitchen, DR, and LR. There is no special care and this stuff is hard as nails, so we don't have assorted scratches, etc. 2 years later. I think tile is great, we have it in the bathrooms, but I'm glad I'm not standing on it for extended periods or dropping kitchen things on it.

I'm sure some folks don't mind working barefoot on tile for extended periods. Some may even prefer it to wood. My wife and I are not among them, which is why we just replaced the tile flooring in our kitchen with wood (engineered strand bamboo).

I love the look of tile, but I agree with previous posters, I really wouldn't want it in the kitchen. Cold, hard, unforgiving, and I would worry constantly about staining the grout (even though I know that there are excellent products out there now that don't stain!) And if it is at all possible to chip the tile, I would manage to do it...

Wood in the kitchen for 29 years now, looks and feels great and would not have anything but..except maybe cork, I grew up in a house with cork floors on the whole first floor, and what a wonderful flooring material that was

Another vote for wood. I've had it for 18 years in my kitchen & most of my first floor. It never goes out of style.

We also had engineered strand bamboo in our last kitchen/family room and it was wonderful - easy to maintain, and lovely to stand on in bare feet.

A dissenting voice. I put tile in my kitchen because it is the path we all take to get in the house, so it gets a lot of tracked-in dirt and heavy wear. I have matching gel mats in front of the prep/stove area and in front of the sink, and they make standing very comfortable.