flor tiles in our bedroom on our new zebra cork floor. cork floor from www.ecofriendlyflooring.com

The 20^th Century Cincinnati Show is over – and even though I did not need anything, it is always fun to look at all of the lamps and tables and artwork and dream.  But one thing you don’t see a lot of in ‘vintage’ form is modern rugs.  Truthfully, they just don’t last that long, or hold up that well, or stay clean enough….  Which leaves us moddies with the dilemma of what to do with our bare wood, cork and tile floors.  When vintage materials are unavailable or impractical, the resourceful among us look for ‘modern’ alternatives.

I subscribe to the WW_D theory.  Given all of the current available choices, what would the original architect/designer/homeowner do?  And this goes for more than just rugs.  It can be used for appliances, counter tops, fixtures, etc.  Midcentury designers were cutting edge and forward thinking, so why shouldn’t we be?  It’s kind of like the Reform Judiasm way of thinking – adapting ‘tradition’ for today’s lifestyle.

I tend to decorate with splashes of color against a white or neutral background, so it was only a matter of time before I became completely intoxicated with the rainbow of  Flor catalogs that frequent my mailbox and inbox.  And darn it if those Flor tiles are not addictive!  We started out with a wall-to-wall application in our laundry room.  It spread to another wall-to-wall app to cover the cold floor in our LL office.  And then the runners…..the perfect pop of color and softness underfoot in our back hall, kitchen and stairway.  We then added a border around our bed when we installed a cork floor in our bedroom and Flor circle rugs in our daughter’s room.  Our last addition was a rug in our family room (when our West Elm chunky shag rug refused to stop shedding more than our cat, even after more than two years!).

We also use Flor a lot in staging our properties.  It’s incredibly portable, can be reconfigured into countless shapes & color combos, is easily cleaned (just take a tile to the sink and rinse!), stays put, does not need a separate pad, and its very durable.  It’s even recyclable!   I like to think I can spot a true, classic modern design, and I believe this is it.  What do you think?

another view of our bedroom. unfortunately, this flor tile was discontinued shortly after we bought it, and I don’t even have one extra tile!

matching flor in our dressing room. I was a little hesitant to introduce more color and pattern into this room with the busy formica, but it actually works!

our laundry room with wall-to-wall application to the right and a runner on (dark) wood floor to the left

another view of the laundry room. Arlen did a great job with the wall to wall install.

tenley’s room with flor circle rugs

I love this striped runner on the stairway landing. It added a great pop of color, complementing the Harper prints, and softened the sound of the stairs.

our newest flor installation. A mixture of ‘metadoodle’ in sassy silver, ‘feelin’ groovy’ in glitzy silver, and ‘house pet’ in grasshopper.