ListWise

Friday, June 15, 2007

Lino Find

I found it first in my house and then Amy found it in her vintage catalog. How cool is that?



Pictured above is the linoleum I found on my front stairs a little over a year ago when I removed the last of the Hi-Low Drop Cloth from the house. At the time I speculated the linoleum was from the 1920s, when the house was officially cut up in to apartments, but there was no proof.

Well, yesterday I got an email from Amy. She’s been reading the blog and when she saw the picture of the linoleum I posted, it looked familiar to her. In a freakish small-world kind of way, she just happened to have a 1929 catalog from the Orchard & Wilhelm Co of Omaha, NE, and wouldn’t you know it, my linoleum is in there! The page is titled "Armstrong's Straight Line and Embossed Inlaids-Accolac", and it comes in several different colors. Below are a few of the shots she emailed me.

The internet is a strange and wonderful thing, isn’t it?





If only you could still get patterned linoleum for $2.90 a square yard. Or really, If only you could still get patterned linoleum. Period!

2 comments:

Anna said...

This is definitely very, very cool! And what a beautiful patterned linoleum!

We plan to lay linoleum in the kitchen, but every linoleum we've seen so far looks so plain compared to those old ones!

Derek said...

We have a patterned sheet Lino in our kitchen, it's under 2 layers of vinyl tiles though. Under that is the fir floor that we'll be restoring. 2.90 per sq. yard was probably expensive back then.