Floor Headaches

Well, after a LOT of research online and talking to people in tile shops and on "pro tiling" forums, it appears that our kitchen floor can't technically support tile or stone because of how it was made. Which means, that if we went ahead and laid tile down, it would surely fail (crack, or come up) because there's too much "give" in the floor. You would know what we're talking about if you've been in the kitchen and felt the bouncing while Echo trots by....

We will either have to beef up the floor joists in the basement (if they had just put in 2x10's instead of 2x8's, we'd be fine!) >:( , or add some other kind of support beam in the basement to shorten the span between the joists by a few feet. The first option would be easier for me to do, the second, I'm not so sure about - sounds like more of a professional needs to be brought in. That option also wouldn't affect the "living space" down there assuming that the support posts could be on the outer walls of the space instead of right in the middle, and a bulkhead would hide the beam anyway.
Beefing up the joists would consist of "sistering" each existing 2x8 with another 2x8, effectively making them "4x8's". I would probably also need to rent some sort of jack to take the bend out of the floor while doing that also. I'm leaning towards the sistering option, as it doesn't look like it'll be too hard to do (not too many wires and things in the way).

So, the options now are to go ahead with one of those options above, or scrap putting tile in altogether, and go with either Cork in the kitchen (we originally wanted that), or hardwood throughout the entire main floor. I really don't want hardwood in the kitchen, though.

As for backsplash, we *still* haven't decided on a colour, or style yet. We are leaning towards a white-ish stone subway tile (either 1x2" or 2x4"). But I'm worried that white stone will stain easily.

What to do, what to do.... I also wanted to get all of this done before September!!