I'm looking for just the right flooring to complete a 1940s kitchen. I would like to hear from anyone who knows a source for either new or new old stock vinyl or linoleum that has the great old Art Deco designs in it.

Phil

-- Phil B (40sphil@iquest.net), March 19, 2003

Answers

Armstrong flooring offers great options. I'm thinking of redoing my kitchen in the sam fashion.

-- Kim (kheier@sgi.com), April 30, 2003.

I agree with the other answer you received. Armstrong has some great VCT 12X12 tile (although you almost always have to order it because no one ever seems to stock the good stuff). You have to special order anything but the ugly office floor colors commonly stocked. We just finished our 40's kitchen in a pommegranite red with a 4" black stripe around the perimeter set in from the edge 6". Everyone who has seen it loves it and comments that it fits the house exactly. Try lining your tiles up on straight seams (not staggered) and go all one direction with the pattern. Get creative, a VCT floor does NOT have to look like a grocery store or a hospital. Go to Armstrong's web site for a little inspiration.

VCT is very easy to work with and cuts very easily with a utility knife and a square. Strike your line on the back (cutting approx. 1/4th the thickness of the tile) and break it toward the front (makes a cleaner edge). You can lightly push your cut edge across a full sheet of 60 or 80 grit paper on a flat surface to clean up a cut edge as good as factory for custom cuts and inlays.

VCT is only about $.50 a tile and the pattern goes all the way through so it lasts for ever. Get a piece of graph paper and plot out your floor. You can do some great designs with a little imagination. (Be careful if you try to inlay diamonds. A 12X12 tile is approx. 17" across the points and it gets kinda crazy in a hurry when you are trying to lay out your pattern).

Have Fun! Norm S

-- Norm S (normann@cheqnet.net), October 07, 2003.

also to make cuts easier heat tile with propane torch (be careful not to scorch ) make materialcut like butter. make complicated cuts a whole lot easier and knife slides though like a hot knife in butter

-- Bob morley (rpm8366@comcast.com), October 12, 2004.