Tod,

Yes, I'm suggesting pulling a 120v circuit from the 240v circuit. It's fine if done properly.

When wired as a branch circuit where you have 2 hot legs (with 240v between the hot legs) and a common neutral, that's called a multi-wire circuit. IMO, the NEC is actually a bit lax on this type of circuit. All it requires is a common disconnect if both hot legs are used on a single device, i.e. if you "split-wired" a receptacle so the top outlet is leg A and the bottom outlet is leg B. It would be NEC-compliant to actually have a pair of single pole breakers to feed the 2 hot legs as long as you didn't use both legs on the same device, for example if you alternated receptacles - duplex receptacle #1 on leg A, then duplex receptacle#2 on leg B,duplex receptacle #3 back on leg A, etc. Personally - I wouldn't do it that way. All the multiwire circuits I've run in our house used a 2-pole common trip breaker. If 1/2 of the circuit causes a trip - both halves are going down.

I'm guessing that there has always been a bugaboo about pulling a 120v circuit from a 240v circuit because of 2 things - lack of a 2-pole common trip breaker and lack of a proper neutral. It would be flat wrong and dangerous to create a 120v circuit from a 240v circuit by using the equipment grounding conductor as the neutral. It would likely work, which is why people did it, but it effectively makes the equipment grounding conductor a live current-carrying conductor and that's a potentially deadly situation.

Rob