When I wrote about a 1970s-look flooring possibility yesterday, reader Tarquin piped up with the fabulous option: Armstrong’s Royelle Rock Hill Stone 12′ vinyl sheet flooring. Indeed, it has quite the retro look — about as close to a 1960s or 1970s vinyl sheet design as I think I’ve seen. I need to see it in person — but I love the look.
And the coloring of this flooring is “warm” — not “cold”, hooray! So much of the flooring being sold today reads cold — and who wants cold feet!
Tarquin wrote:
I always say the hardest finds when creating a 70’s house are flooring and plastic plants. The colors in these vinyls might not be there, but it’s SOMETHING close to what they looked like. Lowes sells a spot on vinyl #16191. It’s lowbrow, but its authentic and it works.
Above: Armstrong flooring from 1963, from a catalog in my collection. The Royelle Rock Hill Stone reminds me of some of these “pebbled” designs. Back in the day, I think they had metallics in there too. I’m not sure if the Royelle Rock Hill Stone is embossed like the oldies either.
Nice find — thank you so much, Tarquin!
Link love:
Pat says
When my parents built my childhood home in 1966, the flooring used in kitchen & den was called “Pouring Glass” or “Toring Glass”. I remember the installer had chips of color which they sprinkled on the subfloor, & then a clear product was poured out over it & smoothed with a trowel like used in pouring concrete. It was beautiful! It did shine like glass. The clear product that was poured out smelled awful, though, & I’m sure it was discontinued because of that & the labor intensive nature of putting it down. Do you have any idea what this was or any information about it?
Lynne says
Does your 1963 catalog have Armstrong’s embossed inlaid linoleum pattern No. 6140, or anything close to it? When I was growing up, I played on this linoleum, the bright orange version of it. I have found exactly one image of it in a Google search, and it just shows a small piece. The paper is yellowed, so it’s difficult to get the impact of that crazy bright orange stuff. The surface was not particularly conducive to lining up dominoes to knock each other down in elaborate designs, but we did it anyway. 🙂
Pam Kueber says
Yikes, I have so many catalogs I’m not sure where that one is…
Chris says
I have this in a bathroom, as tile instead of linoleum. The individual rocks come loose around the edges and the colors show some wear. Instead of replacing it all together I’m thinking of painting it with white Homax Tub & Tile epoxy to keep the patterns and give it a refresh.
jc says
It looks just like the photos. I have this in a laundry room. Unfortunately the contractor botched the installation (you don’t need to hear all the details) but I really really like this flooring. It was about the only non-grey reasonably priced sheet flooring that did not look like a crummy imitation of wood or tile, and that didn’t have a giant pattern, and was not greygreygreygrey or graygraygraygray, which seem to be the only two colors currently allowed.
The material is quite thin and still has that “thin cheap” feeling when installed (sorry) unlike, say, the real linoleum sheet we used in the kitchen, and I suspect it will be kind of delicate, but it looks right and there are hardly any choices that do.