Photo Floorcloths: New Look for Old-Fashioned Rugs by Rose Bennett Gilbert on Creators.com

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Photo Floorcloths: New Look for Old-Fashioned Rugs

Q: We have a row of French doors leading out to the patio from our living/dining room. There's a lot of traffic going in and out. I would like to put a runner or something to protect the floor in front of the doors, but I don't know what will stand up and still look OK. Our furniture is pretty traditional and the area rug is a tweed, mostly beige.

A: How about an old idea that's back looking very new and glam again? Try a floorcloth.

Made of sturdy canvas soaked through with linseed oil under a wear- and water-resistant finish, floorcloths were already a time-honored tradition for European floors when the first settlers brought the floorcloth concept here with them. Householders and — later itinerant house painters — created their own "oylcloths" to add both color and a degree of warmth underfoot.

Later, floorcloths came to be spread under some pretty important feet. George Washington owned at least one; Thomas Jefferson had such a "crumbcloth" in his White House dining room, and even the great houses back in the Old World ordered large floorcloths to protect their entry halls. One early example still survives in the Swedish Royal Palace in Tullgarn, but floorcloths all but disappeared in the mid-1800s, eclipsed by the invention of linoleum.

The coming of the country look and concomitant interest in handcrafts in the mid-1900s has brought floorcloths back into fashion. But with some interesting modern twists, Polycrylic finishes have replaced varnish and shellac, and there's a world of new colors and images. For one example, the giant flowers on the pictured floorcloth are actually photographs of kale heads, seen extremely close up. Nice way to get your vegetables and add color to your room at the same time.

The hidden beauty of this floorcloth (by photographer Melabee M. Miller, manufactured by Step On Art, www.steponart.com) is its indestructibility. Just a step inside the doors, and it literally shrugs off tracked-in grunge — a broom or damp mop keeps it looking clean and almost edible.

Q: Why take good design seriously?

A: Why, indeed, when good design can be as much fun as some of the works we saw earlier this month at the International New York Gift Fair.

Talents from all over the world were on display with new, fresh — and often, very funny — ideas for making the home a happy place.

At Dust Furniture (an imperative pun), engineer/cabinetmaker Vincent Thomas Leman and graphic artist Jessie Leman teamed up to throw a curve into classical design. Their quirky, handcrafted tables, hutches, cabinets and clocks — available in some 25 brilliant colors, like apple green and cobalt blue — lean, lurch and quickly angle their way into collectors' hearts. "People who like my work, like it a lot!" Vincent says. But just one swinging-swaying-yawing piece would take the "staid" out of any room. See what we mean at www.dustfurniture.com. But take a Dramamine first!

Another handcrafting company, Cake Vintage Table & Home, unsets the table and turns old silver-plated spoons into sparkling chandeliers. It takes 240 to create the three-tier, seven-light "Spoondelier" that would brighten any cooking buff's life. Another version comes with teacups, too. Seeing is believing at www.cakevintage.com.

We dare you not to howl (with laughter) at artist Valerie Leonard's Animal Ancestors for Dutch Touch Art (www.dutchtouchart.com).Think your beagle is regal?

Wait till she gives him Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" body! You send a photo of your mutt's mug and she'll paint him/her into art history, quite literally. Try picturing Rachael Ray's pit bull as Michelangelo's "David." Too doggone funny.

Rose Bennett Gilbert is the co-author of "Manhattan Style," "Hampton Style," and five other books on interior design. To find out more about Rose Bennett Gilbert and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.