Vinyl Floor Shopping

Q: It’s been a long time since I shopped for vinyl flooring, but now I m looking for some for my entryway and kitchen.
I looked at Armstrong and Mannington in a local store and on the web.
They almost entirely seem to have vinyl that (1) has embossed surfaces, which I think will be dirt catchers and require extra cleaning, and (2) few solid colors, most of the patterns have distressed or tumbled stone or other random color patterns, which I don’t care for. I don’t need a totally solid color, I had a Solarian floor that was solid with leaf outlines in it, I am just looking for a bit more order. The distressed pattern actually look dirty to me.
Is there a manufacturer who has a line without those issues?
Thanks a lot,
Karen
A: When it comes to vinyl flooring, especially rolled flooring, every manufacturer uses some embossing features to one degree or another for a few reasons. Embossing helps to hide scratches that would normally show up on a perfectly flat plane and it will disguise small irregularities in the subfloor it was installed over. Keep in mind that just because this material is embossed it does not mean it will be difficult to clean. If a current running line of sheet material is hard to clean, it will not be on the market for long, it’s one of the great things of a free market, it just won’t sell as people are dissatisfied with the product.
A great little trick suggested by Gene D., iFLOOR’s commercial contract manager, is to find a few types of vinyl you like. Get a few samples then take them home and purposefully get things on the vinyl you would expect in your home, then see how hard it is to clean. If you find it easy to clean despite the embossing techniques used, set it aside as a potential choice. For those which do not clean easily you will then know they would be a bad choice.
When it comes to patterns, very few vinyl manufacturers make a solid color rolled vinyl, although some have much less variation than others. The bigger players in the vinyl market are companies like Armstrong and Marmoleum, which both have good selections and should have something closer to what you are looking for. Another manufacturer you can look into for solid colors would be Mipolam, which is made by Gerflor.