Kitchen Floor Repairs - Thoughts & Opinions please!!!

Since Luke and I are going to be selling our house (God-willing), we're planning on accomplishing as many small repairs as we can while I'm visiting Colorado in March.  There are a number of things we're hoping to do including fixing up the bathroom (new floor, wainscoting, paint, new toilet, etc), tile in the foyer, painting in the kitchen and office, putting a door between the kitchen and sunroom, repairing some small holes and imperfections in some of the walls, painting doors and trim, and figuring out some way of repairing the kitchen floor.

That's what I really, *really* want opinions on today....our kitchen floor.  Here's some photos of the issue....

This was taken before we moved into the house - on one of our many walk throughs.  As you can see, for some very strange reason, the owners cut out a portion of the original wood floors....maybe for repairs of some sort?  Although, that doesn't even really make sense as the pipes under the kitchen floor can be accessed through the open ceiling in the basement....so I have no idea what this is about!  But it's ugly!  I'ts right in front of the kitchen sink.  We've been covering it with a rug lately, but we know that it will be a huge drawback from anyone looking at buying the house, so we want to be able to fix it somehow.

Here's another couple of angles:

So it's pretty ugly eh?!  So we have a few thoughts...  Do we buy hardwood pieces that we can then find a comparable stain, and try desperately to match it up and not make it look TOO piecey and patchwork.  The issue with that is I'm afraid it's going to look very much like we patched something, instead of blending in really well. Do we try to make it look like it was purposeful?

We could do something like this, with tile and a border and everything:

Then the next question about that would be, would we do tile all the way down the length of the kitchen? See the first photo for an idea of what I mean....from the wall where I'm taking the picture from, to where the counter L's?  So it would be tile in front of all the counter space.  Would that look ridiculous?  Or would you do tile or something in front of just the sink area?


The other thing I was throwing around was more of like a rubber flooring?  Since that's all the rage in kitchens these days, having those mats that are all rubbery and commercial with all sorts of back and knee support, etc.  They make those types of flooring in tile form....would it be better to do something like that instead of the tile?  I'm not sure if we could achieve the same polished look however...

Here's another angle of the kitchen, from another shot we took before we moved into the house:

The offending area is obviously on the left side of the picture....on the right side of the kitchen is the fridge and stove.  When I look at this, I honestly think, should we just tile the whole kitchen area?

Please excuse my obvious artistic abilities!  But just tile the area of the actual kitchen?  Leaving the other sides of the room, which is the entry into the living/dining room at the far end of the picture, and the eat-in kitchen (which unfortunately houses the washer/dryer at the moment) on this near end of the photo, as the original wood floors?  Maybe that would achieve the same idea, but look way less patchy?

I NEED HELP!!! :)  I would love, love, love some thoughts and opinions everyone!  Please be honest...tell me what you think, what you love, what you hate....I want to know what your thoughts would be if you walked into the house and saw all that I've described.  Fill me in!!

Thank you muchly! :)

Edited to add:  Money is tight....we have a relatively teeny budget....so refinishing all the floors would be ideal, and amazing looking, but not realistic at the moment :)

EDITED AGAIN!  Luke just brought up an interesting idea as well....should we take up the wood flooring under the fridge/stove area....maybe tile under them, and use the wood flooring to patch the hole?  Would it still look ridiculous and patchy?  Or would we be able to blend it fairly well?  I'm unsure....