Working with Linoleum Flooring

Tom Silva demonstrates how he uses a hard-rubber J-roller to press down the seams of a border stripe, which is inlaid into a sheet of linoleum.

To turn liquid linseed oil into a floor covering durable enough to withstand decades of shoe scuffs and dog toenails, linoleum manufacturers still follow Frederick Walton's original recipe: Stir melted tree resin into a tank of boiled linseed oil heated to 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Alternately heat and cool the tank until its contents turn into a sticky viscous paste called linoleum cement. Extrude in a thick pastalike strand, then cut, cool, and store in chalk-dusted iron boxes. Blend the dry ingredients — wood flour, powdered cork, pigments, and powdered limestone—and mix with the linoleum cement in a series of double-screw extruders, or "sausage makers." Heat this mixture; then feed into the calenders, pairs of powerful rollers that flatten the raw linoleum onto a jute backing and create the desired pattern. Now hang the sheets, each about 5 miles long, in a 160-to-195-degree seasoning room, and wait two to four weeks for them to toughen. Finally, seal the porous surface with an acrylic finish.

Linoleum spans the color spectrum. One company makes sheets and tile in 147 different shades, both marbled and solid.

Armstrong touted linoleum's ease of care in a 1943 advertisment.

In 1877, fourteen years after his patent on linoleum flooring, Frederick Walton used essentially the same ingredients to come up with a durable wallcovering stuck to a paper backing. Called Lincrusta, its heavy, crisply embossed rolls and panels found a place in many middle-class houses both as faux-plaster friezes, insert, and as highly decorative dadoes. The British manufacturer still uses the original brass and iron rollers to create the elaborate patterns—from restrained Regency swags to florid Victorian foliage. Lincrusta goes up like wallpaper but requires special care because of its weight and thickness. Once up, it also needs two coats of oil-based paint to seal the surface and disguise the seams.