- We know it’s your home, but here are a few décor elements you might want to avoid.
Ever gone to your grandparents’ place and thought how out of date their décor looks? Well, don’t worry — things could be a lot stranger.
Just like fashion trends, interior decoration trends come and go. With some, we should be glad they went and not try to bring them back.
Here are 10 more or less mindboggling interior décor trends from the years gone by.
10. Velvet and Corduroy Everywhere
There’s nothing weird about velvet and corduroy in themselves and both are still used in modern furniture as well. But around the ‘70s, people really went in on these materials.
Chances are that if your parents or grandparents owned a home in the ‘70s, they still have a chair or couch like this. At the time, folks were all about making a warm and cozy home environment and thought these materials were just a thing for it.
We suppose they have that specific feel that can be kind of therapeutic to play with. If only they didn’t look the way they do.
9. Platform Beds
At the end of the ‘70s and in the early ‘80s, platform beds were the coolest of the cool. But you know what’s cooler than being cool?
Having the platform extend way past the mattress.
Or that’s what they thought. People changed their minds pretty quickly after kicking their shins on the platform every night (although these beds are making a small comeback for some reason).
8. Glass Blocks
Find a “modern” building from the ‘80s and we wouldn’t be surprised to see glass block walls and dividers in there. At the very least, they would be in the shower where they admittedly kind of make sense.
But the blocks didn’t stay in the bathroom. They made kitchen islands and entire interior walls out of these things.
Granted, they seem to have been more of a thing in public buildings. Yet, they did creep their see-through way into private homes as well.
7. Tile Countertops
Oh, tile countertops. What a terrible idea you were.
In the ‘70s, people figured they could cover entire kitchen counters with tiles. Hey, it works for the backsplash so why not the counter?
One word — grouting. This quite honestly horrendous trend died about as soon as people figured out what a nightmare tiled countertops were to keep clean.
6. Console TVs
In case you don’t know what a console TV is, it’s a TV built into the TV stand. In the past decades, the idea kind of made sense since before flat screens, televisions were big and heavy beasts.
Might as well embed it into the TV stand and pile things on top of it.
That’s otherwise well and good, but the added weight of the surrounding console made the TV even heavier. And you’d better hope nobody knocks that flower vase over while it’s sitting above the TV.
5. Mason Jars
In the ‘90s, someone figured they could replace vases, glasses, candle holders, and pretty much everything else with a mason jar. That kicked off a mason jar mania that’s still pretty alive today.
That said, it seems people are slowly starting to get sick of it. It’s not a surprise, really — filling your home with mason jars seems a lot less quirky when everybody’s doing it.
You’d be more of a rebel if you actually preserved pickles or jam in one.
4. Plastic Furniture Covers
So, you have your ‘70s home with the velvet or corduroy couch. The thing about those fabrics, though, is that they wear and fray pretty quickly.
If only there was a way to protect them… Of course! Just encase the couch in plastic like a vacuum-packed piece of food.
Really, what’s the point of getting that soft, cozy fabric couch if you’re just going to wrap it in an awful plastic cover?
3. Inflatable Furniture
Speaking of plastic furniture, did you know people went nuts about inflatable furniture? Bizarre as it seems, inflatable novelty chairs and couches were a short-lived fad in the ‘70s.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that they didn’t stick around for too long, though. If you ignore how uncomfortable the chairs were to actually sit in, it was a constant struggle to keep them inflated.
But hey, at least they made moving a breeze.
2. Carpeted Bathrooms
Yes, it was a thing. At the turn of the ‘70s and ‘80s, people put carpet in their bathrooms.
The thinking at the time was that carpeted bathrooms could be more slip-proof, comfortable, and colorful than with cold, hard tile. And while that may have been true, there’s one gigantic downside we’re surprised nobody thought of at the time.
Do we even need to tell you why this was a bad idea? Bathroom carpets turned out to be a huge mold magnet.
1. Waterbeds
The waterbed trend started in the ‘70s and dragged itself well into the ‘90s before finally dying out. At this point in time, it’s been years since we’ve last seen one of these things.
Granted, there were genuine upsides to waterbeds. They could help some people with back problems, while others found that a waterbed’s floating sensation lulled them to sleep faster.
Even with all that, though, owning a waterbed is a maintenance nightmare. You have to regularly change the water or it starts growing all kinds of funky things, and the heavens help you if the mattress ever springs a leak.
Know what, looking at this list, why did so many of these trends start in the ‘70s?