I would stay with a medium color so it would fit with the rest of the house. http://houzz.com/photos/20036707

Hi Cherry, we went with the laminate throughout the house and it turned out absolutely stunning. To be honest it's such good quality I don't think of it as laminate and everyone who visits thinks it's solid wood. It won't look like laminate if it's a good quality brand and you use a thick underlay. Using it throughout the house makes the rooms flow and makes the spaces feel bigger. It's also really easy to maintain unlike shiny glossy tiles! Good luck!

The sizes you mentioned for the flooring: 11mm or 8mm are not "widths" of the plank. It is the THICKNESS of the plank. Technically the thicker the laminate the "nicer" the laminate. Small rooms do well with lighter flooring. And please do not use laminate in the kitchen. It won't survive for very long. If you are going to do it, please purchase enough laminate to REMOVE AND REPLACE the kitchen TWICE. That way you can have the same floor throughout the house even if the kitchen is severely damaged....and the potential is VERY high that laminate in a kitchen will NOT survive a rental situation. Remember: in a rental, the life of a floor = 7 years on average. Laminate in a kitchen averages 3 years. That's why you want to buy enough laminate to install the kitchen TWICE....it's the only way you can get it to "live" for the full 7 years. Have fun.

And also there is some original tile left and I was toying with the idea of tiling over that strip all the way to the wall to create a small corridor of tile as you come in the front door for the 'hallway' that once was, to add interest and a sense of separation between kitchen and hall because the door opens into the kitchen directly which isn't ideal (we had to do away with a small pocket door and partition wall there.) and then do the rest in marmoleum. Would this look weird or should I just do the marmoleum throughout?