Your renovation is fantastic. Love the fireplace. Transitioning floors from your FR to your kitchen and connected spaces can look great if chosen properly. A designer friend just did this in her tiny condo and it looks great. Let me see if I can find a photo. All white kitchen and flooring with hardwoods in all other downstair spaces. Transitional look.

LVP laid adjacent to natural wood never looks good. Your kitchen floor covers a large area which IMO tends to amplify the repeat pattern in LVP. Some of the most realistic LVP wood patterns I've seen are being produced by Karndean. But I'd stay with tile.

As an aside, was the existing kitchen floor real slate?

Thank you! It has been really hard to choose everything; there are so many beautiful choices... narrowing it down to only one is tough! If you could find her photo, that would be really helpful. We're thinking about the large format porcelain tile, with 1/8" grout, probably matching the paint color (lighter than the tile, but not white/off-white). I do really, really love hardwoods... just not in wet areas with kids/pets/bathrooms!

following...

Yes, the existing tile when we bought the house was real slate. I am very tempted to just work around it, but DH really, really dislikes it. It is also uneven, flakes, and is several obnoxious (and dark colors). Having said that, it is also really practical for kids and pets! This is a TX home, so slate could be a part of that... but not for us. We're thinking we need to update to the large format porcelain tile. We will have to pay for the crazy $$ dustless removal, because we're living in the home with a kiddo who has asthma.

Also, it's funny you mention Karndean...I've seen their Oak herringbone https://www.karndean.com/en/commercial-flooring/products/ap02-auburn-oak-parquet, it's really pretty. I'd consider it, but not next to real wood!

I’d look at limestone flooring for the kitchen et. al. Porcelain would be okay, too. Vinyl? Absolutely not.

Right. The Eleganza Absolute Nut is a 'limestone' porcelain tile (in the warmer family of colors). I like it because it has little variation and hopefully won't compete with the Taj. The colors in the photos show everything 'grey' I guess due to the fluorescent lighting in the slab warehouse. The lighting in our home is soft white 2700 led.

Piedra limestone

Tor limestone

Ventoux limestone

So pretty! I notice they're doing tumbled, with the white grout. We were going to stay with rectified and grout that matches the paint. Do you think this is too modern? I like the look of tumbled (we had it in our other house), but getting it really clean is harder than I liked?

Stay with rectified. That's transitional and better aligned with the aesthetic you're going for.

A McSo - The link you provided to your porcelain floor tile is for Absolute Nut not Milk. I like the Milk but it looks much different than what's showing in your pictures. Here's the pic from mfg's website:

Regarding cleaning issues, are you concerned about the stone itself with all the pits and divots or is the grout lines? Another stone I think might look great is Montauk Blue—a slate from Brazil. I happen to have a sample of it sitting next to me. :)

Montauk Blue slate

I don't know why it says milk... we're actually looking at Absolute Nut. Milk is pretty, but too light for all the people/traffic I have going through our house. Absolute Nut is a warm greige as opposed to off-white or grey. We are avoiding anything cold, grey or too industrial. Creams, off-whites, greiges play well in our house.

The Nut is the nuts! :-)

I know... it looks different in person, no matter what lighting. The picture they show is much warmer. It is more greige in person (and our lighting). We've looked at a LOT of tile... it keeps coming up on top.

Has this kitchen reno been completed. I’d love to see the final result. I’m trying to find a tile to go with the Taj countertops. Thanks!

Still working on it... look at Sonoma Gardenia crackle... we are likely going with white to not compete with the Taj.

I love Sonoma crackle for the backsplash. What flooring did you choose?

Believe it or not, when the rubber hit the road, we decided to keep the original slate floors. We will be cleaning, sealing and enhancing them. I'll post photos when we're done.

Wow, it looks beautiful!

A McSo, did you end up using the Sonoma gardenia? I’m contemplating it for my Taj right now.

Wow it is beautiful! Great job!