Will this floor drive me crazy?

Okay--I know I'm jumping ahead here, as I haven't written about any of our other choices concerning the new kitchen---but I have to make a decision about the floor in the next week or so and it's driving me nuts.

For various reasons we have discarded every flooring option except for tile (for those who are interested, I'll explain our reasoning in a later post). Tile presented its own issues for us, for although we are not trying to recreate a historically accurate 1870s kitchen, we do want the new floor to look like it belongs in the house. Lots of tile sold these days has a Tuscan, rustic look or a more modern polished look that just wasn't right for our room.

Then I found this.

Sorry my photo skills are lame

This is a combo of two different tiles; the outer tiles are a 2" matte glaze hex tile in a color called bone (a nice off-white/cream). The tile in the center is a 2" glossy hex in a caramel hue; if you look closely you can see the edges are fired in a cocoa color.  Believe me when I say this looks awesome with all of our other elements/colors. The bone tiles come in sheets of 36; we would randomly sprinkle in 3-4 caramel tiles on each sheet. (It would not have the organized flower look as above). Grout would be a medium shade to better hide any dirt.

I love how this looks. It fits the house and the kitchen perfectly. Yet I have been unable to move ahead and place the order. At first I thought it was because hex tile has more traditionally been used in bathrooms or Victorian surgeries rather than kitchens, but then I found lovely pictures of hex tile kitchens like this one:

Source: House Beautiful Kitchen of the Year 2007, via Your Home, Only Better

So I saw it can be used in kitchens, and in quite a lovely way (the above floor is apparently based on a floor at Harrod's department store in London!). It will give the room a light and airy feel and be somewhat unique at the same time. I have to face it. The main reason I can't pull the trigger on this decision? CLEANING, aka my lazy housekeeping habits.

My current floor (see previous posts for pics)? I hate it because I never seem to able to get it 100% clean. At the same time, I love it because you can't really tell it's dirty, at least until you look at the bottoms of your feet. (Eww.) You could really sweep it every so often, and not mop it at all unless it was grossly sticky or something, and never really tell the difference. Good when you have three boys and a dog.

This new floor--will it look like a muddy disaster after five minutes? Will I be mopping every hour, on the hour? No doubt it will show every crumb, every splash or spatter, every trace of dirt. So on the plus side, I will know it's dirty, but on the minus side, I will know it's dirty and feel compelled to clean it. I don't think it will be difficult to clean, just possibly time consuming, an every day thing instead of an every week or so thing.... ;-)

I feel we have exhausted just about all our possibilities here. We have looked at wood, cork, marmoleum, slate, marble, brick, other styles of porcelain/ceramic tile--this hex tile is what we're left with. Is it a huge mistake, or am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Should I simply encourage the removal of shoes at the door and give the children mops for Christmas? Hmm.