OCTAGON FLOOR TILES are great for pre-war homes — 1920s, 1930s, 1940s — and then some colorways came around again in the 1970s. This tile style can work, I think, for either a vintage style bathroom or kitchen floor, and that dot gives you a nice flourish of color to play with. Heck yeah there is more →

With so much focus these days on hardwood, tile, cork and here, of course – VCT – flooring, it’s easy to forget that in postwar homes, carpet was very desirable.

Heck yeah there is more →

I have two of these braided Capel rugs, and I love them. They are very durable, versatile and affordable — and fit my 1951 colonial ranch home’s decor just fine. Remember, in the 1940s 50s and 60s homes were a mix and match…inside and out…of ranch, Cape and colonial style.  If your house is not all high-style Eichler modern – it could probably do will well with a warm dose of colonial underfoot.  These rugs come in all wool, which is really nice… chenille styles that last forever… and fiber mixes that may be better for your damp basement. As I said, I have two Capel braided rugs and at different points have had them in the dining room, living room, bedrooms, the basement — they really are  extremely versatile. And, there are zillions of style/color choices at Capel’s website.

This post originally ran Nov. 17, 2007

This is a hot topic: Readers are hearing from floor sales people that they need to polish and buff their newly installed vinyl composite floor tiles like the professionals do in office buildings.

Heck yeah there is more →

With all the recent talk of shuffleboards, I did a little nosing around, and it turns out that you can still get a vinyl tile shuffleboard from Armstrong:

This definitely goes on my dream list! The back half of our basement is concrete… my husband David has been opposed to vinyl tiles even retro-sized ones… but when I show him this, it just might turn him around. He likes shuffleboard! … I think it would be pretty easy to work this very primary red-white-blue design into any number of color combos. I really particularly like the Armstrong Excelon black – it looks like it hasn’t  changed forever.

Thanks also to reader Kitschy Kimberly who just happened to see a house with a vintage basement shuffleboard and sent this image in.  Man, was life simpler then, or what. Thank you Kitschy Kim!