A Kitchen At Last!

After what felt like months of living without a kitchen floor, I finally can finally walk barefoot to the refrigerator in the middle of the night without tracking bits of subfloor material from the bottoms of my feet. The old floor was vinyl, which, according to the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine, is "...from a health and environmental standpoint, one of the worst materials for a floor..." (Green Living, 2005). Vinyl continues to be toxic throughout its entire life, emitting harmful fumes that can cause cancer, immune disorders and reproductive disorders. Being exposed to ONE fire involving vinyl can cause respiratory disease and the International Association of Fire Fighters supports the use of alternative materials in homes. Because of all of this, one of the first things I did when I moved in was to pull out the vinyl. But I wasn't ready to install new floors yet, so the last several months we have been walking on the sub-floor, which isn't very pleasant!

I had alot of ideas about flooring, but I also had a budget. I thought about hardwood and/or bamboo, but hardwood was too expensive and I worried that new bamboo woudn't flow with the older wood floors throughout the rest of the house. I had always admired the retro vinyl or linoleum floors you find in fifties and sxties era diners, and had long thought about doing something like that in my kitchen. I did some research and found a product called Marmoleum, which is just a brand of linoleum and pretty inexpensive. LInoleum is made from a variety of all natural materials, including linseed oil, and doesn't off-gass or cause nearly the amount of pollution and distress that vinyl causes-- and it is comparably priced! I ended up buying 13x13 inch Marmoleum tiles for about $5/sq foot. My whole kitchen and laundry room-- about 200 square feet (big for a kitchen) cost me about $2,000 installed. It looks beautiful, is easy to clean and won't kill us in a fire. You can find out more on their website: http://www.themarmoleumstore.com/