My Cosy Kitchen Floor

We've married, we've moved, we've sewn and quilted, we've woven and painted and now we add linoleum inlay to our repertoire! When we purchased our home the kitchen looked like this:

and we were pretty excited! Original Morton metal cabinets in great shape, double enamel sink with side drains. The floor however was peel and stick; or rather peeled and not stuck so well.  We decided to take a peek under the noisy, crackly, marble-like  flooring. What we found was old red and white linoleum. Hand cut 9" squares - on most of the floor.....

undeterred we decided to try and salvage what we could..... we cleaned and scrubbed, scraped, sanded (yes, sanded), and tried just about every combination and concoction we could think of, find on Pinterest and pick the brains of everyone we knew (and some we didn't) but finally succumbed to the idea of covering the old floor with a new one.

We layed a subfloor of plywood and then we moved on to the process of tiling......

Let me say this before we continue. It was a long process, admittedly self imposed, but still a long one.  Knowing this was going to be our one and only home we wanted to do something special, something that was one of a kind, that reflected our love for each other and our 'little slice of heaven' cape.   Being quilters we started looking at designs and then stumbled upon  Laurie Crogan and her amazing talent. http://www.inlayfloors.com/WORKS/RUGS/1/thumbs/  Not only did she inspire us, but she answered my emails and coached! We are very grateful that she personally took the time to guide us!

What started as a solid floor with a carpet design in the middle took on a life of its own.  Using Forbo Marmoleum in 3127 Bleeckerstrret, 2939 Black, 3131 Scarlet and 3240 Willow. We had a few 6" x 9" samples in shades of white and we used those for accent.

 

Our first thoughts were around a tumbling block (six point star pattern) but it proved to be too much cutting and a bit busy for the small space. Our kitchen measures 9'10" x 12'. So we started thinking along the lines of the central carpet in tumbling blocks, then we migrated to a Celtic knot......

We started practice cutting......

then finally got down to business.......,.,