In many homes, the attic is being changed from a store-room into an attractive, comfortable spare room at little expense. The skillful use of odd pieces of furniture, the pleasing blending of draperies, and the covering of the floor with an attractive linoleum pattern will easily make this room one of the most interesting in the home. Whether the room is used as an extra sleeping-room or for sewing, the advantages of a linoleum floor are obvious. It is so easy to clean; cuttings and threads are easily swept up; they do not stick to the smooth-surfaced linoleum. For a very small outlay, you can transform the attic in your home into a usable, attractive room.
For the Kitchen, Pantry and Laundry
If your kitchen or pantry floor is the kind that requires you to spend hours with water pail and scrubbing brush and back-breaking labor to keep it clean, it is time you change to a linoleum floor. And, even with linoleum floors, many women find it hard to get away from the scrubbing habit. Most people scrub linoleum entirely too frequently. A plain or inlaid linoleum floor should be thoroughly waxed with liquid floor wax. The wax provides a coating which prevents the dirt from being ground into the surface. Such a floor needs only to be swept and then wiped with a damp cloth, and the wax renewed every five to six weeks. Varnishing a printed linoleum floor will add to the life of the linoleum and make it easier to keep clean. All these considerations hold equally true for vestibule, laundry, and closets. There are many bright patterns in Armstrong’s Linoleum for the kitchen or pantry from which you can make a selection that will exactly fit into your idea of what these rooms should look like.
The Advantages of Linoleum Floors
By way of summing up, consider for just a moment what the qualities are that you really need and demand in the floors in your home. Certainly, you want your floors to be durable. And is there any floor you can think of—cost considered—that can approach a good linoleum in wearing quality? Next, you demand sanitation. Do you know of any floor that excels linoleum in that respect? Most assuredly, you want floors that are easy to keep clean. Have you not found linoleum easy to clean? And you must have comfort. Is not linoleum easy underfoot?
But, you say, we must have warmth, too. Certainly, you must. But you would hardly think of leaving the wood floor in your bedroom and living-room bare, would you? No, you use rugs. Follow the same course, then, with your linoleum floors; and you will find them equally as comfortable as hardwood. In fact, thickness for thickness, linoleum is a better non-conductor of heat than wood is.
Then, finally, you demand beauty and economy in your floors—and justly so. As for color harmony, hardwood has distinct limitations. Shades of brown and tan are about the only colors that are available. But, with linoleum, the range of colors and patterns is well-nigh unlimited, and your floors can thus be made an integral part of your general color scheme. On this point, the [colorplates] that accompany this book speak for themselves.
As to economy, linoleum floors of good quality are less expensive today than the cheapest hardwood. And they cost less to maintain, too. Given reasonable care and proper treatment, linoleum floors will last indefinitely, without the periodic refinishing that all hardwood requires.
So you can see for yourself, once you analyze the subject, how remarkably linoleum does combine each and every one of the qualities you want the floors in your home to possess.
Bureau of Interior Decoration