With what would you replace this marble floor?

[A.Fox]

I could ask this question on Houzz and get all sorts of answers, but I wanted to ask this here for the more sensitive approach. The house was built in 1925, the interior features some classical detailing, but really isn't fully colonial revival. For more photos of the first floor from when we purchased in 2018, see this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=12893

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The previous owner installed a checkerboard black marble and black granite (I think) floor with white quart (I think) accents in the foyer, the breakfast room, the back hall, the kitchen, and even the kitchen backsplash. I think the first too rooms originally had wood floors, but I am not certain. They must have had issues with maintaining the floors as well, since when we purchased the house it was covered in a wax. The wax was hazy, scratched, and generally looked pretty bad. We had it removed and the floors repolished. Trouble is that they have been terrible to maintain. If anything gets spilled on it and it's acidic or basic enough, and it doesn't get cleaned up immediately, then it etches the floor. Similar happens if our dog licks the floor, or if we walk across it with slightly damp socks.

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By 10 months after having the floor initially done, the floor had little dull spots all over it, particularly in the kitchen:

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We brought in the same professional to do the work again. Not even 24 hours after yesterday our housekeeper must have spilled something and didn't fully clean it up and now we have this:

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I don't think we can keep shelling out $500 to have the floor refinished every year or so. Maybe we can put a big cheap rug down in the kitchen for now, but I'm not sure what else to do with them. So if we went with a new floor what would it be? Our budget is certainly not unlimited, in fact this isn't even in the budget right now.

It could certainly be an oak floor, but I'd be concerned with matching the existing, especially as it would be matched end to end. This new floor is also 1/2" higher than the original floors so I'm concerned all of our doors would now have ridiculous looking undercuts and I'm not sure if our dual swing pivot mechanism would still work if it were lowered back to it's original height. A porcelain or ceramic tile would certainly be most durable, especially in the kitchen, but I don't know what tile would look appropriate to this house and avoid bad trends? What would everyone here do?

[Manalto]

Checkerboard floors were enormously popular in the 1920s. That's what I put in my kitchen, using VCT



Sorry for the poor quality image and room in transition, but you get the idea.

[1918ColonialRevival]

As James mentioned, checkerboard patterned tile or linoleum was very popular in 1920s kitchens. Unglazed ceramic hex tile, sometimes in a mosaic pattern, was popular as well.

For the other areas, I would use salvaged oak. Much easier to blend with existing flooring than newly milled wood. Since the tiled areas are raised, you might get lucky and find the original floors underneath.

Whatever you decide, kudos for wanting to get rid of that '90s "hotel lobby" tile!

[A.Fox]

Unfortunately nothing underneath, though I originally thought there might be. With the carpet pulled out of the adjoining rooms I can see the cement board under the tile. Although knowing that our wood floors are floated on wood furring above the subfloor I do wonder how the cement board plus the stone is still taller than our wood floors.

What about continuing the checkerboard out in to the foyer similar to this house from the same period (and possibly the same architect):

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Is that too much? I can't tell if this original, but I've found a few houses from the late teens and 20s that also have unglazed quarry tile foyer floors (like our quarry tile sunroom). I don't think I could get my SO on board with linoleum in the kitchen, even though I have seen it in reproduction tour house kitchens, so teh checkerboard would most likely need to be a tile.

[Willa]

I suppose it depends on your limitations for care, if that makes sense ?

A good quality hardwood would be fine. Traditionally, the kitchen floor in a finer 1920ish house could have also been linoleum (meaning: actual linoleum - made from powdered cork and pigment) or tile.

Linoleum sheeting is environmentally friendly, and slightly soft, so a dropped dish is less likely to break. Ceramic or porcelain tile is harder and slipperier. A small hexagon tile, with or without a contrasting pattern and border would look nice and be appropriate.

Terra cotta tile was often used in traditional kitchens, though you will need to consider the terra cotta color as to how workable that is with your palette.

Hardwood is fussier with regards to water.

As James mentioned, VC Tile (Vinyl Composition) would be a traditional, serviceable and economical choice. A non white/non black combo is also more forgiving to things like dust footprints, etc.

Here are a few vintage kitchens. They are all a little older than your house, though ?

My guess is that your previous owner was heavy on a dramatic design concept, without much consideration for the practical. It looks like the kitchen was renovated in the 50's +/- given the arrangement of the cabinets and layout. Do you have intentions of replacing the cabinets or otherwise renovating the kitchen ? If so, the flooring should be considered in context of the whole. If not, choose something that is serviceable for your purposes, and that you visually like.

This floor appears to be some type of sheet flooring. It was in a very fancy mansion, so the kitchen was designed for the purposes of the help:

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Hardwood floor in a late teens kitchen:

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Small probably unglazed porcelain hex tile floor in a 1910's kitchen:

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Terra cotta tile floor in a teens or 20's kitchen:

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[A.Fox]

We definitely have a late 1950s kitchen. I believe the cabinets were originally natural birch color, and the sill of the enlarged window is pink Tennessee Marble, which is a hint of what the color scheme might have been back then. We have since painted the cabinets a single color and changed out the hardware to brass. We are tossed on whether we change out the cabinets since they are perfectly serviceable, keep them as they are, or save the boxes and install new doors. I'd love to have cabinets like the first and second photo. I doubt we would ever do an unfitted kitchen, especially since it's not very big. We originally thought we would wait until after the rest of the house was done before tackling the kitchen, so where the floor falls in that is sort of in question.

I could stand to see that black glass tile mosaic on the soffit go away too, but have resisted making a bigger mess while we have other things to do.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Willa mentioned one I forgot - unglazed terra cotta tile. Those were usually found in Spanish and Mediterranean revivals, though they were used in other settings as well.

Continuing the tile into the foyer is an option. I've seen it before in some period magazines and ads. Google books has several years worth of House Beautiful and House and Garden from the 1900s through the 1920s that you could refer to for inspiration.

[Willa]

We definitely have a late 1950s kitchen. I believe the cabinets were originally natural birch color, and the sill of the enlarged window is pink Tennessee Marble, which is a hint of what the color scheme might have been back then. We have since painted the cabinets a single color and changed out the hardware to brass. We are tossed on whether we change out the cabinets since they are perfectly serviceable, keep them as they are, or save the boxes and install new doors. I'd love to have cabinets like the first and second photo. I doubt we would ever do an unfitted kitchen, especially since it's not very big. We originally thought we would wait until after the rest of the house was done before tackling the kitchen, so where the floor falls in that is sort of in question.

I could stand to see that black glass tile mosaic on the soffit go away too, but have resisted making a bigger mess while we have other things to do.

The layout of the kitchen looks really functional. Kitchen renovations are a super treacherous slippery slope as they can get very expensive quickly. Pinterest, Houzz and certain blogs are like the devil as they just get a person thinking "If I just did this one thing..." which snowballs and before you know it you are seriously pondering $ 30,000 stoves, a complete reconfiguration and a bunch of other fancy design concepts you never wanted before.

Your kitchen has a LOT of black. If the new floor was not black that would be a huge change. Getting the tiles off the soffits, and maybe backsplash would also be a positive change, I think, though this would mean that the walls below would probably need to be skim-coated at least, before you could paint that area. The cabinets as they are are not offensive. Paint and better hardware are the least expensive option (well, unless you start getting seduced by knobs that cost $ 75.00/each), and I've read great things about keeping the original boxes and getting replacement doors.

I'm clumsy so looking at those ultra high gloss stone floors plus water plus a pet underfoot = Laurel and Hardy time for me.

[Manalto]

A warning about black and white checkerboard floors - they look good for about 10 minutes after they're cleaned; the black and the white both show the slightest blemish. If you want to stay monochrome, consider gray and ivory. Lower maintenance and, to my eye, more elegant.

[1918ColonialRevival]

If you think you might be interested in a hexagonal mosaic floor, take a look at this place:

https://www.restorationtile.com/