Eight years ago, when I moved into my house in Wisconsin, I fell in love with the vintage linoleum on the second floor. Strewn with pink cabbage roses the size of my fist, the (secretly awesome) floor in the master bedroom caused some of my friends to gasp aloud.

“This is a floor to repel and terrify men,” said my friend Robert, who advised (for the sake of my love life) an immediate upgrade to wall-to-wall carpeting. But I hate carpeting, and I loved the 1940s linoleum. So I kept the cabbage roses.

I also kept the crazy quilt floor in my studio, which was meticulously put together with scraps, as far as I could tell. The next owner will probably tear it all up, but I’m going to miss those crazy floors.