Kitchen: More Flooring Options

It would appear that what I'm really trying to do with this post is find out how many more times my blog readers will tolerate being asked to look at little brown squares of flooring samples before quietly going away out of boredom or irritation.

So.

How many more times can you look at little brown squares, m'dear? Four times?

There's four today. Then I promise to go away until I come up with something more entertaining. And colorful. Though I make no apologies for brown. It's a lovely color.

As I mentioned in a post last week, I'm on the hunt for some product after I realized that all I have left to do in the kitchen is paint, flooring, and curtains.

In another, even earlier post, I thanked my mom for literally weeks of cleaning, stripping, staining, and varnishing these cabinets, which I was able to date in another post to no later than 1972, when they were discontinued. Note the swell cabinet label, on the sink apron:

We also installed new countertops of Sand Crystall, by Formica: 

note: this has much less pinkish/reddish tones than are showing on a computer monitor

We didn't try to imitate a past era with the counter edges. I had to move quickly to get the house habitable, and there was no time for what my family might have termed "showin' off." I did try to pick a pattern that at least loosely imitated those speckled laminates from the 60s and 70s. 

Now more recently in this post, I got down to perusing some floor ideas, initially disheartened finding my first, favorite choice had been discontinued. 

Now on further searching, I've come up with these possibilities: 

1. Vivendi Collection, Blockprint in Ginseng
2. Natural Creations Mystix, Casablanca Cardamom3. Rejuvenations Ambigu4. Rejuvenations Stone Run

1. Vivendi Collection, Blockprint in Ginseng, from Mannington's commercial line

2. Natural Creations Mystix, Casablanca Cardamom, from Armstrong's commercial line.

3. Rejuvenations Ambigu, from Armstrong's commercial line.

4. Rejuvenations Stone Run, from Armstrong's commercial line.

The source links to these images are in the collage caption. 

My comments:

I like #3 the least of the four. I think because the pattern seems too similar in intensity to the countertop.

#4 has some similarities to the discontinued pattern I love, but it isn't a truly "arabesque" shape Mediterranean style. It reminds me of Girl Scout trefoils! Putting aside the troop associations, it's probably more french provincial style. 

I'm probably most attracted to #2. It's an 18-inch tile, which is whopping huge, but the floor space in my kitchen is quite expansive, so it would probably be okay. 

I think that my choice of flooring has to be either a solid or a something that "reads" like a solid, like #1, or something with a large, prominent pattern, like #2. It seems like these two extremes are the only two things that provide enough contrast to the medium range busy-ness or "peppery" look of the countertop. I realize too, that I'm going to have to drag home samples to see what really "works" with the countertop colors and the wood tones. It's that test that really counts, because computer monitor colors are terribly deceiving. 

If readers are wondering why a woman who loves color seems to be spreading brown up and down (slight apologies to Dr. Seuss), it's coming. It's going to go on the walls in the form of bright avocado green, and some very colorful and large-patterned curtains made of vintage fabric--gold, avocado, russet, orange, curry, blue, and lime green. Oh, and the tchotchkes. I'm all about the tchotchkes. 

There. No more little brown squares. I promise.