Hi AT,

I have an endless hallway running alongside the rooms in a typical San Francisco Victorian apartment. To keep peace with the downstairs neighbors, we've agreed to cover over our recently-expensively-refurbished hardwood floors.

Do you think Florwould be good to use on a long, skinny area (25' long x 3' wide) that gets a goodly amount of traffic? Solids, patterns, neutrals, brights?

Thanks,
your devoted reader,
Liz

Dear Liz,

Flor tiles are great for our famously long SF hallways because they're tough, easily replaceable, infinitely customizable, and more affordable than a custom runner. But your particular hallway may be a little too narrow. To use Flor you'll have to hand trim each tile down from roughly 19" square to 18" or less, so that you could fit 16 rows of two across your hallway. If you're up for this much hand labor, we'd say go for it. You can have a lot of fun with this solution, and it's easy to update.

Your current color scheme is very neutral, so there's room to play. We'd choose a color family (for example, pale blues and greens, or earth tones) and experiment with a random arrangement of tiles within it, in different textures and even patterns. This will add visual and tactile interest to a trip down your hallway. Stick to light hues to prevent a tunnel effect, and avoid the "Walking on Clouds" series because the edges are beveled, which will get in the way of all the trimming you'll have to do.

And check out The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner for other ideas.

Anyone else?