Re: kids room flooring- marmoleum
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 22:11:30 -0800 (PST)
RoseWind here, Port Townsend WA. Long built. Common house 6 years plus.
Our kid room floor, and kitchen floor, is excellent. It's Marmoleum, a genuine linoleum (like from the 50s), made by the Forbo company. It's a product made from ground cork and sawdust, in a binder of linseed oil, calendared onto a jute backing. It's fairly resiliant - I have it in my kitchen at home and dropped dishes seldom break. But also fairly glossy and hard in a way that is easy to clean. A couple times a year I wax it with Protex, a good natural wax product made in Oakland CA, and the rest of the time I just clean it with water, or a very dilute cleaning solution. Marmoleum is not cheap to install, but it's very low maintenance and long lasting. We have a yellow in kid room, brick red in kitchen. When it's brand new, there is some smell from the linseed oil, but once that's done, there is no more off-gassing. As cleaner of the play room, I would not at all suggest carpeting. Playdough, art supplies, food (though it's not supposed to be in there), general dirt (even with our shoes-off routine): carpet collects it all. While I'm at it, I'll put in a plug for the bulletin board material also made by Forbo. After seeing lots of beautiful common houses with inadequate or somewhat shabby looking bulletin boards, we decided to budget for a whole hall full of quality bulletin board material, and it has been well used, and is as good as new, six years later. Seems to "self heal" its push pin holes. Comes in all sorts of colors - ours is a sage green.
Lynn Nadeau

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