Get it? Yes, yes I know.
Oh so many rounds on what my new floors should be. Do I get vinyl strips like I’ve put down in the hallway and the bedroom? The floor I bought seven years ago is no longer in production, and getting something that matches brings the price up to something I can’t quite justify for vinyl.
When I moved in the previous owners had put in different floors in all (4) rooms of my tiny apartment. Mostly they had used really cheap tiles and put them directly on top of the 80’s vinyl floor. I understand why they wanted to cover up the light brown/beige floors that was supposed to look like cork, but can’t for the life of me understand why they chose to use cheap terracotta tiles and do a really bad job of putting them down evenly. The only way to clean something like that is to get down on your knees and scrub with a brush. So not happening.
Not only did they put in tiles in the hallway, living room and kitchen but all three rooms have different tiles. It looked frightful. It’s also really cold in winter, as in freezing. Tile floors without underfloor heating is just not practical in Scandinavian winters. I wish I had taken a picture of the tiles in the hallway, they were a pinkish beige colour that I have never seen before or since.
Although laminate flooring has come on in leaps and bounds over the last decade, I still don’t like it. I’ve been living with my hard icy cold tiles all these years, and get the same feeling every time I walk on a laminate floor no matter how good it looks. There are cheapish versions of parquet floors – particularly oak – but the colour is all wrong for me, it’s too red and the floor just looks dead and lifeless. The really good oak floors, the ones I would love to have costs a minor fortune and is only happening if I win the lottery.
So what’s left you say? Pine floors:
I might have repressed their existence. We had pine floors in my childhood home, but we had to sell the house after my dad died and sometimes I miss the place so much I get weepy. That place is still home for me, although there have been three families living there after we left. Our dogs wore grooves in the floor getting to the garden door, it is a soft wood but I don’t mind a floor that has marks from the inhabitants.
So anyway. I’ll try to go for a bit of a whitewashed pine floor, I think – I might change my mind again tomorrow.
Frk Johansens adventures in home improvement 