Cohousing-L Mailing List: Common house kitchen flooring

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

We have been using our common house for 15 years. Our flooring choices have 
seemed to work well. Stony tile in the front hall and bathrooms, bamboo in the 
rec room, oak in the dining/great room, and Marmoleum in the kitchen/pantry and 
in what was for years the young-kid room, and is now a small lounge for small 
meetings, or for viewing video.

The request was made, on this list, to review kitchen flooring. Marmoleum is 
"real" linoleum, with cork (if I remember right) ground up with a binder and 
calendared onto a jute backing. 
Advantages: It is relatively soft, so dropped dishes almost bounce, seldom 
breaking. It has been easy to maintain: a dark swirly color doesn't show minor 
dirt. I use a beeswax-based floor polish a few times a year, and just damp mop 
the rest of the time. It looks sort of home-y, especially to those of us who 
grew up with linoleum floors. 

Disadvantages: It's fairly expensive, and should be installed by someone 
certified to do so. (Watch out for nails in the subfloor that may work their 
way up over the years, making little bumps in the surface. Its softness is a 
disadvantage in two ways: it will nick if something hard and heavy is dropped 
on it; it will corrode in contact with some chemicals, including some of what 
our commercial dishwasher uses: the slight splashes underneath evolved into 
pits in the flooring before we noticed and added a big tray there. When first 
installed, the linseed oil in it gives off a scent. 

But in 15 years, we've only sustained a couple of nicks, and a couple of  
places cleaning chemicals pitted. Overall, I'm pleased with it, and in most 
places it looks as good as new. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA