Lino
Where do you stand on lino? A small straw poll among my nearest and dearest was as divided as our aged class system. The refuseniks (or snobs, depending on your point of view) ranged from the hysterical, ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes’, to the blunt ‘vile’. While many sheepishly reported decades of reliable service, the overwhelming response from those in possession of a Farrow & Ball colour chart was that lino is a four-letter word.
It wasn’t always thus. Despite its 1950s suburban connotations, linoleum was actually invented in 1855 by an Englishman called Frederick Walton and embraced by the Victorian elite usually associated with the finer crafts of tiled floors or expensive rugs.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used in hallways and high traffic passages or as a sort of fill-in surround for carpets – before the advent of the now ubiquitous fitted carpet. By 1877, the Scottish town of Kirkcaldy was literally the mother ship of lino production, with six different manufacturers based there.
Walton gave his remarkable invention a name derived from the Latin for the product used to make it, linseed oil; in Latin linum means flax, and oleum is oil and at one point it was the most recognisable brand on the planet.
Currently, the floors at Rock House are all wooden. But the question remains over the bathroom and loo. Stepping from a bath on to floorboards leaves telltale footprints. And a musty smell. Talc users are faced with snowy deposits that need scrubbing, and then there are splinters and gaps.
In what is known to us as ‘Watergate II’, I once had the temerity to bathe in Alastair Hendy’s Tudor house (I was a guest at the time) and have never been allowed to forget that water dripped through the ancient boards and into the room below. Gaps in flooring allow water egress. Who knew?
Lino is rarely leaky and a swift go with a mop deals with all of the above. It is fantastically eco and, crucially, still made in the UK. Marmoleum, a brand of lino produced in Kirkcaldy, Scotland is one of the biggestselling floor coverings at John Lewis. So, should I ignore the style police and waterproof the closet?
Next week: Stray cats
It wasn’t always thus. Despite its 1950s suburban connotations, linoleum was actually invented in 1855 by an Englishman called Frederick Walton and embraced by the Victorian elite usually associated with the finer crafts of tiled floors or expensive rugs.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used in hallways and high traffic passages or as a sort of fill-in surround for carpets – before the advent of the now ubiquitous fitted carpet. By 1877, the Scottish town of Kirkcaldy was literally the mother ship of lino production, with six different manufacturers based there.
Walton gave his remarkable invention a name derived from the Latin for the product used to make it, linseed oil; in Latin linum means flax, and oleum is oil and at one point it was the most recognisable brand on the planet.
Currently, the floors at Rock House are all wooden. But the question remains over the bathroom and loo. Stepping from a bath on to floorboards leaves telltale footprints. And a musty smell. Talc users are faced with snowy deposits that need scrubbing, and then there are splinters and gaps.
In what is known to us as ‘Watergate II’, I once had the temerity to bathe in Alastair Hendy’s Tudor house (I was a guest at the time) and have never been allowed to forget that water dripped through the ancient boards and into the room below. Gaps in flooring allow water egress. Who knew?
Lino is rarely leaky and a swift go with a mop deals with all of the above. It is fantastically eco and, crucially, still made in the UK. Marmoleum, a brand of lino produced in Kirkcaldy, Scotland is one of the biggestselling floor coverings at John Lewis. So, should I ignore the style police and waterproof the closet?
Next week: Stray cats