56 
House & Garden 
FLOORS OR FLAWS IN YOUR KITCHEN 
11'hot to Expect From and IIow to Use Linoleum, Tile, Cork, Wood, 
Concrete and Composition for Flooring 
ETHEL R. PEYSER 
The kitchen in the New York residence of Otto H. Kahn, Esq., is equipped with the most modern 
facilities. The walls are tile with cove corners and the floor is of cork composition 
had just built a 
beautiful home and 
because of this her 
friends believed that 
she knew everything 
about home equip¬ 
ment and therefore 
was looked upon as 
a domestic crank. 
And so it turned out 
that she and her sec¬ 
retary after finishing 
up the usual round 
of social notes and 
unsocial bills, took 
up m ucli of the 
morning each day 
writing to friends 
and friends of 
friends about her 
latest and most prof¬ 
itable finds. Today 
she asked Miss 
Wentworth to collect 
all the letters about 
kitchens, especially 
the inquiries about 
kitching flooring, which had been stacking up. 
So they sat down for a technical morning. 
“Really one letter will do for both Mrs. 
Pennington and Mrs. Allen, I think,” sug¬ 
gested Miss Wentworth, “and if there is any¬ 
thing I don’t understand as you dictate the 
data, I shall ask you to explain and in that 
way you will make it clear to the inquirers. 
The most uninformed will then know how to 
avoid flaws in their floors.” 
“That will be splendid,” and Mrs. Mallory 
settled herself comfortably in her big chair for 
a long morning of dictation. “And now we’re 
off—- 
“My dear Mrs. Pennington,” she began, 
.“it’s a good thing that you and Claire Allen 
are building your houses in the wilds, far from 
the madding crowd, or I should not spoil either 
of you by giving you of my minute finds. But 
as you are pretty far off from the source of 
information I am more than glad to help you 
in any way whatever. 
Floor Requirements 
“Of course, you realize that every kitchen 
flooring should, as nearly as possible, be:— 
Attractive, 
Easy to keep clean, 
Noiseless, 
Odorless, 
Vermin and dust proof, 
Comfortable to feet and back, 
N on - slippery 
whether dry or wet, 
Durable (no up¬ 
keep but washing 
and polishing), 
Fire proof or fire 
retardent, 
Impervious to 
changes in tempera¬ 
ture, 
Laid over any 
kind of floor base, 
Light weight 
enough to be suit¬ 
able to any structure. 
Seamless or joined 
so as to be virtually 
seamless, 
Non - warping, 
non-expansive or 
non-contracting.” 
“Wait, Mrs. Mal¬ 
lory—what do you 
mean by fire retard¬ 
ent?” 
“I'll come to that 
point. These quali¬ 
fications, my dear 
friend, are what a 
good flooring should have, and strange as it 
may seem there are many which include all of 
these requirements and many filling all the 
most important ones, so you can choose any 
one of the floorings that are described in this 
letter and you will be more than satisfied. 
“Here is a list of the most important kinds 
of flooring in use:— 
Marble, 
Wood and wood block, 
Linoleum, 
Cork, 
Composition and concrete, 
Tile, 
Terrazzo. 
“Marble we can dismiss as being too ex- 
.4 light gray and blue cork tile with a dark blue border has been Light and dark grav cork tile give a serviceable flooring to this 
used in the kitchen of the Harry Chandler residence at Hollywood, Cal. modern kitchen in the home of .4. T. Lloyd, Esq., at Dallas, Texas 
