Linoleum? Marmoleum? Oleum?
By Christa TerryI like wood floors. To a lesser extent, I like floors that are practically indistinguishable from wood. I like tile floors a teensy-weensy bit, but not all that much. And I don’t particularly like linoleum at all.
Not that there’s any in my house. The middle floor of my home is all wood except for the shoddily installed vinyl in the kitchen and the shoddily installed tiles in the bathroom. Someday I’m going to call up the previous owners to ask them why they chose to DIY without first learning how to properly DIY. Then I’m going to rip everything up and replace it with some nice wood that matches all of the other flooring. Problem solved.
That said, I’m always open to exploring new flooring ideas, and when I came across Forbo Mamoleum I thought, all right, I’ll have a look. Marmoleum linoleum is all natural, made from linseed oil, wood flour, rosin, jute and limestone, and lined with cork.
Pros:
- It’s easy to install oneself, it’s simple to maintain, and it’s eco-friendly.
- You can design and install your own pattern, so long as your chosen pattern uses primarily cubes and rectangles. Or you can get a custom floor based on a design you create.
Cons:
- The color in the DIY range is sorely limited. There’s black but no white! And they don’t give you much information regarding the fancier design options.
- It still looks like the floor of my elementary school cafeteria because of the swirly pattern of the individual pieces — does it have to be swirly?
Methinks that Forbo is trying to expand its customer base from the commercial to the public arenas. I don’t know how successful they’re going to be. I don’t know about you, but I think that Marmoleum, for all it’s colors and wacky patterns and greenness, just looks too darned industrial.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I think you’re confusing linoleum with vinyl flooring. Marmoleum is just a name brand for linoleum, which is old school flooring made from linseed oil and used commonly in the early to mid 20th century. The floors most people think of as linoleum are actually vinyl, a completely artificial ingredient.
Real lino, like the Marmoleum brand, is beautiful, but is more expensive than vinyl and harder to find.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I am definitely aware that vinyl and linoleum aren’t the same thing, Nola.
I’m just not a fan of linoleum…in my mind it’s something that belongs in vintage high school cafeterias and old hospital hallways. In it’s heyday it was also quite flammable, which kind of freaks me out, but perhaps they’ve fixed that.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:44 am
(That said: I would put it in my mud room, because it’s hecka durable and easy to clean.)