Let's talk Floors

This week has been nuts and I've needed to be in Dublin the last 2 weekends so I haven't been out to the house to take new pictures.  So as I don't have any photos to back up anymore wall demolition and construction updates, I might as well move on to other fun stuff .... FLOORS!

So, as most of our living space is going to be open plan, we decided to go with the same type of flooring throughout.  I think it will be more streamlined (and it cuts down on me having to search for and make a separate decision about tiles too!).  Trolling through the internet, drooling over different flooring is akin to the time spent looking for the 'ideal kitchen' and the excitement while searching for the 'perfect wedding dress'.  Unfortunately, when you enter the showrooms, the dreaming becomes shortlived as Practicality and Budget begin to rear their necessary but clearly less indulgent personalities.  I've been into Bruce (our floor guy) a number of times, humming and hawing over real wood vs laminate flooring (I'll do a separate post on that point!) and getting samples.  He has been incredibly patient with all my questions and probably thinks I have NO IDEA what I'm looking for as I've borrowed samples that couldn't be more different from each other.  This is sort of how my flooring desires evolved ....

In the beginning, I loved the look of glossy and dark hardwood.  It is rich and classic and would marry beautifully with the classic creamy kitchens that I had been looking at.  Kinda like these:

And then I began to worry about long-term care, scratches, wearability.  So I switched gears and fell in love with older looking oak or pine, reclaimed wood boards, anything that lends itself to a cottagey or farmhouse feel:

And then one day I was in a kitchen showroom where a part of their floor was laid with a very light wood laminate, think white ash or Scandinavia.  And that very same day I came across 2 pictures of kitchens with a similar type of floor AND kitchen features that are similar styles to what I'm looking at:

And armed with this last love of light wood flooring, we went to the floor guy a few weeks ago to narrow things down in terms of what I could get within our budget (actually, Stephen went with me and gave me the ultimatum that I could leave with no more than 2 samples from which our floor must be chosen from).  So I am still undecided but atleast I'm down to 2 options, DARK or LIGHT.  Here are my last 2 model images, and sorry, the darker floor is mostly covered by an area carpet (!) but it's the best pic I could find that also incorporated the look and feel of the kitchen that I'm thinking about!

 ..... or ......      What do you think?

(and btw ... all these pics are from my Pinterest boards so if you want to find original sources, find me there!  I couldn't figure out how to embed pics from Pinterest or the source directly into the blog!)