Landverbunny's Retro Finds

1950s Linoleum, hand pieced from period designs (above: blue, green and yellow) Unlike a lot of 70's and 80's flooring, this stuff was pieced together smoothly, though usually people just pieced together simple squares or rectangles, however, if you were going for something a bit nicer, these were some suggested patterns. You could even get them pre-cut.

Pink and Grey Lino theme

Green and Beige theme

The 70's wasn't all just gold and green... or burnt red/orange, though those are the colours we think of most. Heck, I remember when my parents bought their first home, a brand new build, and the choices came with carpeting in either a sort of avocado/olive or harvest gold. These colours, as well as the ones below, are all from home decorating books and adds from the era.

Did I ever mention that I like Linoleum?

Well, not sure if "like" it the correct term, but it's the stuff I grew up seeing in every grandparent's home, even the home i grew up, which was a new build, had asbestos tile (eek, I know, but it was kept in tip top condition at least). Thing is, I have far more affection for this than the vinyl flooring of the 80's, maybe because it didn't scratch up and look old in a few short years, or maybe because I longed for something that wasn't white or beige, or brown or matched with those blue-ribboned country geese. To me, this stuff was hard wearing, looked new as long as you took care of it, and it was fun! That, and it made me think of my grandmothers cookies.

The stuff above is a mix of either tiles cut to form patterns, or simply just the appearance of it (being printed). At first, I was just going to make up a red/white based flooring pack, but loved the design of the first one so much, decided to make tiling patterns for the four colour samples that I had and just include the other red/white tile flooring as a bonus.

These would pretty much look great in any high traffic area, which what they were designed for, such as: entryways, hallways, kitchens, laundry rooms, kids rooms, family rooms etc.

It might seem like I have a flooring and wall obsession, and yeah, I probably do, which stems back to why I even have a library of flooring and wallpapers. It was for creating real-life miniature rooms and such. I would spend hours collecting period samples and making them into printable papers, the same went for linoleum.

Taking this and applying it to the sims wasn't a far stretch, it's also why I don't consider myself a content creator anywhere near the level of all those people creating such fantastic objects, they really have my awe and appreciation.

I'm just happy to be able to share some of the stuff I find fun and make for a little extra, decorative, content for the game. Linoleum flooring being one that I felt was sorely lacking, especially how common it was and that I still find it showing itself in so many older homes. This stuff here, surprise surprise, is from several linoleum samples, aka: linoleum carpeting, and these designs were actually popular in loom carpets as well. For added usefulness, I find many of these pass well, in game, as traditional carpet.

As with much of my stuff, these are all mid-century, or thereabouts. Basically running from the 40's through to the late 60's, though I do like to play with both earlier, and later, stuff.

Sits nice in a room

This was a thing, I kid you not! Flooring on the floors, and the walls, all the flooring everywhere, and in plaid! What is possibly more crazy than the fact that this happened in home decorating, I only personally witnessed this in the homes of the more wealthier people, and on a home shopping trip (about 10 years ago), we came across a really nice MCM home that still had one of the bedrooms sone up like this, only one wall got the treatment, but there it was, in carpeting to match the floors.

i had a lot of fun looking for vintage brick linoleum, something I well remember seeing in people's kitchens, growing up. In reality, it really didn't look much like brick, but so many people bought it and installed it anyway. The same went for the faux stone, of which I added 4 bonus patterns to the lot.

At least with the linoleum, and the asbestos tile, the stuff was at least hard! I grew up with asbestos tile in the kitchen and bathroom, which was a simulation of stone flooring and things would break as they would on real tile or stone when they landed on it (and my mother kept it neatly polished all the time).

Fast forward to the 80's and we still saw these patterns revisited, but this time in sheet vinyl. Now, even with a slightly textured appearance, it was even more obviously fake, but at least stuff was less likely to snap on cushion flooring.

Vintage paper for Children

I been puttering with a number of vintage wallpaper paterns for children's bedrooms, the nursery, and playrooms and come up with a few that I could nicely tile into Sims 4 wallpaper. Of course I had to take some liberties as many wallpapers were made to line up diagonally rather than horizontally.

I think it's hit or miss on either choosing to make the pattern smaller for more of a random look, as intended, or just alter the pattern and make something a bit larger. Compromises indeed! However, I think most of these worked out fairly well.

the above shows the wallpapers with their matching paints.

More Country Crate Art! The game was woefully lacking in crat art designs, but I did actually like using them, even if the selection was limited.

Felt happy with these, and they certainly fit in with vintage decor

Retro Meets Country

Recently did up some vintage country walls with patterns I created from some mid-century wallpapers and borders. Overall, am pleased with the look.

These two are probably my favourites of the bunch.

A little medieval fun, from paintings I did a while back

A short while back, I had noticed that medieval style miniatures can work well as game art-work. Double bonus, I had these painted, and digitized, already.

My biggest bane though, is finding "whites" that work well with various game lighting situations. I really really hate glare and "whiting out" so, as a compromise, I dulled the white backgrounds with varying shades, which seemed to have done the trick.

1920s wallpaper that could fit in both late Victorian (1870s-1900) homes and Edwardian homes (1901-1910)

It was a lot of fun compiling these, sadly I could not turn every wallpaper I found into something useable for the Sims 4, but these worked out fairly well.

Basically, what I wanted was something more authentic looking rather than cartoonish, but also something that shouldn't look out of place in game either. Not worrying too much about realism did aid though, where a number of liberties needed to be taken with the originals.

As you can see, I did manage to get a good deal made however.

Hope you enjoy them

When looking for in-game rugs, or CC, for the Sims 4, one major problem I encountered is that I simply do not like the looks of most re-colours. This even includes the rugs in the Paranormal pack, some look okay, but some colour variations just look too monochrome. Another problem I found was that of unnatural symmetry. This happens when taking a 1/4 or 1/2 of an image and then flipping, or mirroring, it to complete the rest. Sometimes it works, such as with simple geometric designs, but other times, it just reminds me of a really colourful Rorschach test, or more commonly, a kaleidoscope.

How I avoid the Rorschach test, or Kaleidoscope, effect:

Here you can see a prime example of an image that sort of has the feeling of a rather simplified kaleidoscope (image A). It was created by taking a quarter image and flipping it to create 1/2, and then flipping it again to create a whole.

This is certainly a quick, and easy, way to piece together an image, but it absolutely does look better with some images a lot more than with others.

Image B, shows my solution. While it may look off to modern viewers, this is a rug that is actually supposed to have a middle area filled with a design with the elements all facing in the same direction. It lacks strict symmetry but still maintains some balance.

This was done by stripping the border from the center and then rebuilding the border in a way that looked pleasing while keeping it's symmetry. The center was then spliced in, in segments and areas filled in compliment the look.

This is not to say image A is wrong, the idea can create a, non-authentic, but somewhat pleasing pattern, though would suggest rebuilding the middle areas where the images meet to avoid the unnatural look the mirroring creates.

Issues with Colouring:

So, I like the rug but want more colours:

One way to do this is to find something already changed, such as what I did with the top right image. I like this as there are a lot of colour changes to the pattern. (you might notice some rather notable changes to the image, this is because I was experimenting with how to rebuild the border and how to break-up the central pattern)

The bottom left image shows the original but with a colour change I directed to just some targeted areas. I like this way of colour changing things far more than in the last example, which simply applies hue, and sometimes saturation, changes to the entire image. The red and grey rug actually looks like a change that may have actually been done, while a complete hue change was actually far less common, probably due to how washed out those tend to look.

If you want to download any of the shows rugs, I do have the original rug, and it's grey counterpart, (along with 3 other rugs) for download here

Look at that plushy carpet!!! (in 12 colours)

Along with the major lack of linoleum, I find the carpet choices are a bit limited as well. Not that I enjoy carpet in real life, but I remember when it was still the king of flooring choices for the home. I still have nightmares about the bathroom wall to wall carpet being sold out of the Sears mail order catalogue.

This carpet was desirable though, and was a bit on the high end, something very similar to what my grandparents invested in and covered all the hallways, the parlor and even the stairway. Really don't see stuff like that much any more, but essential for period/vintage builds, or for re-creating that retro look.

the plushy version is available here

and the carved carpet (below) is available here

Uncharted Freezer Bunny

This was inspired by some of the mid-century modern art, but with a Sims twist.

Wrapped up these pretty pixels onto a canvas to hang on your Sim's walls, free to download here

and tossed on a starry eyed llama as part of the package

More Linoleum!

I really just feel there isn't enough linoleum choices out there, and the game only offers a very basic sampling, including a 70's style brown/gold embossed type. Out of the set I just uploaded, these two have to be my top faves, though I really enjoy the two below as well. The set itself, has 7 options in total which certainly is giving my linoleum needs a boost!

I do love the confetti stylings of these!

It's hard to make loads of vintage linoleum tiles and not create a few linoleum rugs in the process.

These are things I been making for dollhouses for years and figured why not in the Sims as well? Only real extra, different, challenge is working in one size.

To make these I would dive into catalogues of swatches and samples and attempt to imagine, and finagle, the rest of the designs to make a whole rug. After that, the process changes considerably from dollhouse to the sims.

Hope people like them, I know I always enjoy having a variety of different floor coverings!

The first set can be downloaded here

Striated Ceiling tile, which, unfortunately is a bit too subtle in my screen capture, but admittingly, i did it that way intentionally as I made it for my ceilings and I find ceilings that are too busy is distracting. Perhaps if I make some for walls, I'll try to add more depth, after all, this is the wood paneling I grew up with. Sometime in the between the 40's and 50's, my grandfather had this put up on the walls in his modern, deco, 1940s home. The paneling always fascinated me, as much as the house decor did. He didn't have any on the ceilings though, but apparently that is/was a thing, and with ceilings now possible, I had to give it a shot.

These are now ready for download

In the screenshot, I had to see how it pared up with basic wood paneling, not bad, but with the shot could have captured more detail.