You
can get carnuba wax at industrial supply stores which, properly applied to an appropriately cleaned linoleum will provide a finish which is easy to maintain, durable and will keep the linoleum looking good forever.
Literally - keep it clean and waxed and linoleum should last the life of the house.
I lived with a super-ultra-environmentally-friendly Eurogreen through the late '80s and early '90s. He wanted real linoleum for our kitchen, I wanted no wax vinyl.
We compromised, linoleum in the high-traffic hallway, hotel grade vinyl in the kitchen.
The linoleum cost 10X the vinyl (which was at the high end, itself) and the sneers of the ultra-eco-freaks who layed it with their super-duper environmentally friendly adhesives and their lectures on how to care for it were pretty hard to take (especially since my share of the damn thing alone was over 1500DM and colors which eco-freaks approved of in those days were beige, sand, beige and spilled coffee. Uni-, not mixed. Heaven forbid we should mix our colors.)
Had the opportunity to visit the old apartment a while back, both floors had been laid over 20 years ago by then. The kitchen floor had long since been replaced, it was already looking bad when I moved out five years after it had been laid. The linoleum, despite constant shoe traffic, dogs, cats and kids looked just as good as the day the arrogant Handwerker laid it. Obviously, we took the same good care of the kitchen as the high-traffic hallway, as did the folks we passed it on to.
You get what you pay for, and, today, if money were no object, linoleum would very much be on my list.
I especially love those clear, geometric patterns. I bet the reds, greens, yellows and blues all sizzled.
Thanks so much for posting this link.
