Forbo Marmoleum Melbourne | Linoleum Guide

People ask us for Marmoleum using both words. Some call it vinyl, some call it lino, and both groups are looking for the same product. You will also find it on our own site under vinyl flooring, because that is where most people expect to look.

So let us settle the naming first, then go through what we actually stock — 24 Forbo collections, more than any brand on our floor except one.

Is Marmoleum vinyl or linoleum?#

It is linoleum. Marmoleum is Forbo's brand name for their linoleum, and linoleum is a genuinely different material from vinyl:

Linoleum is made from linseed oil, pine rosin, wood flour and limestone, pressed onto a jute backing. It is a natural-material floor and it has been made the same basic way for over a century.
Vinyl is a plastic — PVC — usually with a printed design layer and a clear wear layer on top.

They get confused because they arrive in similar formats, are laid by similar methods, and fill similar jobs: hard-wearing floors for busy buildings. We file Marmoleum under vinyl on this site because that is the category people look in, and the search numbers say the same — customers search "forbo vinyl" and "lino flooring forbo" in almost equal numbers.

Why the difference matters when you are choosing#

Three practical consequences, if you are deciding between linoleum and a vinyl:

The pattern goes through the material. Marmoleum's marbling is in the body of the sheet, not printed on the surface. A deep scuff on a printed vinyl can show the layer underneath; on linoleum there is no printed layer to wear through.

It is a natural-material product. That matters for projects with environmental requirements — schools, healthcare, government fit-outs — where the specification may name linoleum directly. If your architect or builder has written "linoleum" on a drawing, a vinyl is not a substitute.

It behaves differently underfoot and needs the right subfloor preparation. Linoleum is firmer than a cushioned vinyl. It is a specialist installation, which is why most Marmoleum goes into commercial work rather than DIY.

What Alpha stocks: 24 collections, four families#

24 collections, 326 colours — browse them all at our Forbo page. Every one is Marmoleum, grouped into four looks plus two speciality lines:

Marbled — 9 collections. The classic Marmoleum look, with colour swirled through the sheet.
Solid — 5 collections. Plain, single-tone colour.
Acoustic — 4 collections. Built with a backing that reduces sound transfer.
Linear — 3 collections. A directional, brushed-looking grain.
Speciality — 3 collections, including two that are not floors at all.

Marbled: Real, Fresco and the patterned look#

This is the family most people picture when they hear Marmoleum, and the two collections customers ask for by name both live here:

Marmoleum Marbled - Fresco 2.5mm Collection — 38 colours, the widest choice of any Forbo collection we hold
Marmoleum Marbled - Real 2.5mm Collection — 32 colours
Marmoleum Marbled - Vivace Collection — 9 colours, with a more pronounced movement through the pattern
Marmoleum Marbled - Splash Collection — 6 colours, and Terra — 4 colours
And Real and Fresco again in 2mm (17 and 12 colours) and 3.2mm (one colour each)

Real against Fresco is the question we get asked. Both are marbled; Fresco runs lighter and more open, Real carries a denser, more mineral-looking grain. With 38 and 32 colours between them, the honest answer is that you choose by looking, not by reading.

Solid: Walton, Concrete and the plain look#

Marmoleum Solid - Concrete Collection — 33 colours, a softly clouded near-plain
Marmoleum Solid - Piano Collection — 19 colours
Marmoleum Solid - Walton Collection — 14 colours, the traditional plain linoleum
Marmoleum Solid - Cocoa Collection and Slate — 5 colours each

Where solid suits: fit-outs with a strong colour scheme, or anywhere a pattern would fight the rest of the room. Walton is the one people search for by name, and it is the closest to what most people mean by "classic lino".

Linear and Acoustic: Striato and Decibel#

Linear gives you direction rather than marbling — useful in a long corridor, where the grain runs with the room:

Marmoleum Linear - Striato Original Collection — 12 colours, plus Striato Colour (8 colours) and Striato Textura (7 colours, with a surface texture you can feel as well as see)

Acoustic is the family to look at for apartments and upper floors:

Marmoleum Acoustic Linoleum - Decibel Collection — 27 colours, and the same again in a 200cm on-order width
Marmoleum Acoustic Linoleum - Corkment Collection — a cork-based underlay layer
Plus the Acoustic Collection at 6 colours

If your building has a sound requirement from the owners corporation, the acoustic collections are the starting point. Our acoustic underlay guide explains how the numbers in those by-laws work.

The thickness choice: 2mm, 2.5mm or 3.2mm#

Real and Fresco each come in three thicknesses, and the collection names carry the figure: 2mm, 2.5mm, 3.2mm.

What more thickness buys you is more material above the backing — so more to wear through before the floor needs replacing. 2.5mm is the general-purpose choice and it is where almost all our colour range sits: 38 and 32 colours at 2.5mm, against 17 and 12 at 2mm, and a single colour each at 3.2mm.

So in practice the decision is made for you by colour availability. If you want 3.2mm for a very heavy-traffic floor, the colour choice narrows to almost nothing, and that trade-off is worth knowing before you fall in love with a shade.

Two collections that are not floors#

Worth knowing these exist, because people come looking for them specifically:

Marmoleum Furniture Linoleum - Desktop Collection — 21 colours, a thinner linoleum for desktops and furniture surfaces
Marmoleum Bulletin Board - Pinboard Collection — 15 colours, for noticeboards and pin walls
Marmoleum Conductive Linoleum - Ohmex Collection — 6 colours, a conductive floor for rooms with static-sensitive equipment

The Desktop collection in particular gets steady interest from fit-out projects where the joinery and the floor are specified to match.

How to narrow 24 collections down#

A short way through, based on what the collections actually differ by:

Does the room have a sound requirement? Start with the Acoustic family — Decibel at 27 colours is the one with real choice in it.
Is there a specification naming linoleum or a Forbo collection? Bring it to us. Half our Marmoleum work starts from an architect's drawing, and the collection is already decided.
Do you want pattern or plain? Marbled for movement, Solid for flat colour. That one decision removes about half the catalogue.
Long corridor or directional space? Linear — the grain runs with the room.
Then choose the colour, and let the colour decide the thickness, because 2.5mm is where almost all of the 326 colours live.

The thing to avoid is picking a colour first and then discovering it only exists in a thickness or a width that does not suit the job. Marmoleum has more collections than any brand we hold bar one, and the overlap between them is real — Real and Fresco alone appear six times across three thicknesses.

See Marmoleum at our Docklands showroom#

Marmoleum is a material you judge in person. The marbling reads completely differently at arm's length than in a photograph, and with 326 colours across 24 collections there is no sensible way to shortlist from a screen.

On prices: they are on the individual collection pages, not here. Marmoleum is priced by collection, colour and the size of the job, and most of our Marmoleum work is commercial, where the quote depends on the subfloor preparation as much as the material.

Our showroom is at 351 Docklands Dr, Docklands VIC 3008, open Monday to Saturday 9am–5pm. Bring your specification if you have one — if it names linoleum, or names a Forbo collection directly, we can tell you straight away what we hold and what has to be ordered.