Tag Archives: Linoleum City

We pulled the trigger on our Shipping Container Studio Space!!
Last week, we bought a brand new 20′ high cube container, which will eventually find it’s home in our yard near our old garage. Together, the garage and the container will become a great writing room for Bobby and CatBeach Music. Here is a little mock-up I pulled together:

We bought the container from IPME, who helped us nail down the specifics of the modifications we’re making, including the steel framed windows and doors they are fabricating for us. IPME is also spraying foam insulation to the bottom exterior of the container, and handling the exterior paint. We plan to finish out the container interior ourselves.

Our first decision on the interior is to finalize our flooring choice. While the floors will be the last thing installed, we have to decide what we’re using and how they will be installed now as this will inform IPME where to place the door frames.

The container comes with bamboo subfloors, which some people finish as their final flooring. We love using natural materials, so the obvious choice for us would be to go with bamboo. But we decided to do something a little different and a little more playful.

We’ve been hearing about this resurgence of linoleum, so we thought we’d check it out. We went to Linoleum City in Hollywood and learned all about this wonder product. First of all,  much to our amazement, linoleum is a raw, all-natural, biodegradable material made of linseed oil (the oil in flax), pine resin and wood flour. Who knew!?  Second, there are some new linoleum manufacturers offering modern colors, textures and designs. Very cool!  And lastly, yes, you can still find the weird dull-colors and plastic-y looking tiles that we all remember from the 70’s.  No thanks!

After looking through hundreds of choices, we narrowed our search down to a manufacturer called Forbo Marmoleum. They have some really fun colors and potential applications that caught our eye. We really like their flat sheet linoleum product called Marmoleum Walton Uni – in the color called ‘Paving’. It has virtually no texture to it, and will be applied in one sheet. Here is an example: 

We like the idea of just a gray floor that mimics concrete, but we also like the idea of doing something a little playful with the floors. The great thing about this product is that you can get super creative with the floor design. We played around with a few marmoleum tile options flowing into the gray sheet, and created some tile patterns the appear inside of the gray sheet.

Take a look at these 3 options and let me know which one you like best in the comments!

OPTION #1:

OPTION #2:

OPTION #3:

Thanks for giving me your feedback. I’ll be posting updates on the container build – so check back here to follow along!