The new luxury vinyl plank selection is really good. I'm sure you could find a style that you like. It's great for kitchens too because its waterproof.

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Hardwood is great til the dishwasher leaks. Hardwood looks awesome til the ice maker leaks. Hardwood looks incredible til the constant dripping in front of the kitchen sink cups the planks. More on reddit.com

My experience is largely based in pottery, but there are large swaths of information that cross over. Here is what I've learned over the years... The difference between cheap and expensive tiles involves a lot of different things but the primary factors I know most about are the clay-body, glaze type, and production costs. Clay body The type of clay a tile is made of can differ for reasons ranging from intended application and durability to appearance and texture. To keep it simple, there are three main groups: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The labelling of tiles can get kind of confusing, you're likely to see tiles listed as "porcelain" and "ceramic", with a couple other names thrown around at random. Some of this is simply marketing, but knowing the difference between what is actually porcelain vs ceramic can be an important piece of information. I'll dive a little deeper below... Earthenware: More commonly know as terra cotta, think red clay flower pots. You don't see this used as load-bearing tile (floors) much because it is fired to the lowest temperature of the group and therefor has the lowest strength and hardness. That isn't to say it's not durable, there is a reason it's been used as a floor surface thousands of years. There are plenty of floors out there made with red clay tiles, but you may notice how much thicker they have to be to have appropriate strength compared to stoneware and porcelain. Terra cotta also has the highest absorption rate of the three, this largely due to the low firing temperature relative to the others. Non-vitreous ( tile is not a good option for application near water. A properly fitted glaze will impede much of the water, but unless your grout is also impermeable you'll still get some small amount of water in the tiles over time. Not necessarily a huge concern in an interior application, but in outdoor applications where temps drop below freezing the tiles will very quickly break down. Stoneware aka Ceramic: This one is kind of a catchall for everything that isn't porcelain. All clay tiles are ceramic, but not all ceramic tiles are porcelain. For the sake of trying to reduce confusion I will continue using "stoneware" in this section. Stoneware comprises the in-between groups...these tiles have been nearly completely vitrified; fired to a temperature where the clay particles fuse together to form a unified glasslike body that is nearly impermeable to water. These tiles will likely have a water absorption rate of 3.0-0.5% (how much water the clay absorbs relative to weight). This kind of tile is probably what most people think of when the picture tile. It's often a grey clay body but can be red, brown or nearly white depending on what the formulation of the clay is or whether or not pigment has been added. These tiles are extremely durable, very hard and come in every shape and color you can imagine. They have a higher density than tiles fired to a lower temperature which aids in strength, they also will function better than terra cotta in regions that experience freeze-thaw cycles. How the tile is produced and finished has an impact on cost. A cheap white subway tile in this category probably looks like this...greyish clay body with a white glaze over the top. Simple, no fuss, functional. Problem is you might not really get a true white due to the clay body muddying the glaze. More expensive tiles will have a clay body formulate to match the color of the glaze plus better glaze application. The nicest ones will probably have more time and money put into the glaze fit, hardness and finishing of the final product. Speaking of glazes, next time you're in a store with printed patterns take a look at the difference in printer resolution between expensive and cheap tiles. Porcelain: The Mack Daddy of ceramic tile. It's expensive for a reason...Fired to a higher temperature than the others the materials required are more expensive. But with that cost you get the hardest, densest more water-impermeable tile outside of silica-glass tiles. Porcelain typically has a water absorption rate of <0.5%, which is why it is so often utilized in kitchens and bathrooms. It's the best option of them all for wet environments. Porcelain clay is typically very white, which is also good for not only white glazes, but bright colors in general. Imagine trying to paint a yellow flower on a black or brown canvas...it's not going to look very good. Stoneware has rates around a 5-6 on the mohs scale, porcelain tile comes in the range of 7-9, diamonds rate a 10. Porcelain tile is very scratch and wear resistant and is very strong, though you do deal with increased brittleness which can make cutting porcelain tiles a challenge for novice users. A saw generally is recommended over a hand-cutter. Glaze: Whether or not a tile is glazed has an impact on strength and how well it wears. A good-fitting glaze will not craze over time (those harline cracks in the glaze you see on old pots). Crazing can compromise the strength and ability of the clay/glaze to remain sanitary. A badly crazed glaze can harbor bacteria growth. Glazes can drive cost up if they include expensive colorants such as cobalt, copper or tin (tin is a common ingredient in opaque and white glazes). Production: How much work is put into production of the tile? Are they pumped out of molds, glazed, fired and shipped? Or are they continuously checked for things like warpage, consistency of size/thickness/glaze defects, etc? It's like any product, do you want the single stitch Walmart version of Levi's or do you want the double stitched pair from Levi that cost 2-3x as much bust last you decades? More on reddit.com

You are encountering the dilemma of installing gray flooring. It’s VERY hard to decorate around and it’s going out of style very quickly due to this problem. Hope you reconsider and install a medium walnut color so it can be timeless and far easier to live with. More on reddit.com