1970s Interior Design

The bad:

And the ugly:

California 70's was very comfortable and relaxing. Big nubby fabric chaises, stone, barn wood, wool, a bit of brass, plants, immense coffee tables, art pottery, arty things from Santa Fe and Woodstock type "galleries" of the time, etc.

Some of it just reads as cheap, somehow. Maybe it's all the vinyl...

And those WALLPAPERS (!)

When your dream is to live inside a forest fire...

Embarrassing, but I have to admit I spat out my wine laughing when I read R5.

I'm stealing this and adding it from another fun thread.

70s were kinda 60s with a little more color and curves. A lot of god awful brown/orange combos. I like the large graphics. Some of the furniture and lamps are cool. Definitely better than 80s. Still a little psychedelic yet modern. I think Halstons house rather than 70s Soho bohemian loft.

The redeeming aspect was the "anything goes" freedom with colours and patterns that, when it worked aesthetically (or when you were stoned), was just fun.

They seemed to do a lot of contrast and "color blocking"

artisanal wall mounted water features. Big wooden speakers with cream nubby grille covering. Maybe a sexy bathroom. cowhide and sheepskin. Rattan.

Autumnal stripes racing along walls...what inspired this ? ?

Burl Wood Coffee Tables.

These were really popular at the time if you could afford them. Except they were supper glossy, high gloss with a thick coat of lacquer, not the matte or semigloss they do today.

The stripes come up from Mondrian through Sol LeWit etc.

It seemed like everyone who was cool had at lest one bean bag in the living room. The more conservative types did not.

And at least one waterbed in a bedroom.

This shit was big in middle class houses. Fake wood paneling you would get from the hardware store. It was cheap and easy to install with a few tiny nails. It was supposed to "warm up the room". Looked nothing like real wood.

I liked panelling. I liked the weird plasticy stuff in "design" colors but there was also affordable panelling that WAS wood. (laminate)

Yes, R17 is correct, waterbeds were the shit back then. But only of mom and dad were cool. They were expensive for beds at the time. Most kids did not have them even their parents had one. But unlike the ones t day which look like a normal bed, they had not invented the soft edge yet so all waterbeds had a horrible wood frame around the outside. Part of maintaining them is that you had to "burp" them every once and a while. LOL

Plants, plants, plants. It's not a true 70's pad if you didn't have at least one Macrame hanging plant in the corner. You could never have too many! Some were 3 tired on one string.

Plants on the floor, plants on the wall, plants from the ceiling. If you were really lucky you had a ledge and of course, the most natural thing is the world is to have plants with long downward vines.

It's like bringing the outdoors in but not.

Hell no! The houses were mostly ranch style with low flat ceilings that made the rooms feel smaller. The bathrooms and kitchens were small and en suite bathrooms weren't really a thing yet. Worst of all, all the bedrooms were on the same side of the house. No fucking privacy.

Everyone thinks about shag carpet when you mention the 70's but Sculptured carpet was also very common. So fucking ugly, usually olive or mustard.

R22 looks like aliens descending from the ceiling to eat her

One of the trends back then were houses where the master bathroom would have the vanity outside the real bathroom. So it was kind of weird, sinks and mirrors in your bedroom, seprate door to the shower and toilet.

Everyone was a star is born. Or so they thought. Almost every track house had these type of lights around the mirrors. Hollywood glamor.

That mustard color was disgusting. My grandparents managed to pack all the ugliness of the 70's in their house during the 80's. Their room had a brownish mustard carpet, one room had orangish-red carpet, and the other room had green/yellow mixed shag carpet. To top it off, they had multicolored sculptured carpet everywhere else. I felt so disgusted and embarrassed having to live in all that ugliness. I'm so glad they finally decided to change it out in the early 90's.

Kind of borderline 1970s....but I've always wanted a gypsy wagon in my back yard to offer as a guest room.

Teak wood was nice. Popcorn ceilings were not nice.

My parents bought their large house in 1965 and refurnished it in the 1970s. It stayed that way until they were gone. We finally emptied it in 2006 to rent it out. They had yellow counter-tops in the kitchen, dark cabinets, some type of vinyl tile that looked Mexican, woven wood blinds over the sink with orange/yellow fuzzy accents. 70s wallpaper, huge coffee table with arty tile on top, very expensive. All brown, orange, and yellow tones. Two Swedish modern chairs, gold velveteen. Large, big lamps, big modern dining room set. The place was classic and they took care of their things.

I went to an estate sale today that was also all 70s but very run down. It reminded my of my parents house but shabby. It was sad. They had some huge cool lamps and some nice 70s chairs that needed reupholster. If done right you could have a very cool home, Op.

Not just tile in the kitchen, but tile with wide colored grout! It was an upgrade from Formica. Problem was the grout would get stained and bleached out from cleaning products so it never really looked good. Usually a tan earthy color with a bright saturated grout line like red or orange. If you really splurged and were a bit more edgy you might have had blue handmade tiles with black grout but this was not common.

R23, not all houses were ranch style. My parent's was two stories, large rooms, full bath and bed downstairs. Built and sold for $35,000 in 1965, worth over a million now (SF Peninsula). There are certainly ranches in the area but not that common in San Francisco, more in the suburbs. A lot of other styles, too.

OP if you are rich the real Brady Bunch house just went on the market about a month ago. 1.8 million. Inside does not match the set. Outsided was faked to look like 2 story. The big blank wall on the left had a fake window put on it when they filmed the outside shot.

r33 It really depended on where you lived. I assume 2 story houses are more popular in colder climates and larger cities. Where I lived in the southwest, it was mostly single story houses though..

r29, I'd give my eyeteeth for a room like that, golly that's elegant.

IMHO the only real redeeming feature of Seventies décor was the use of natural woods, particularly good wood paneling. Of course cheap fake wood paneling looks horrible and is despised for good reasons, but real quality wood has a warmth and depth that's beautiful in any sort of light, and absolutely glows when the sun hits it. It's made a limited comeback, which is nice, although these days it's usually an adjunct to the horrible greys and beiges that are in fashion.

Of course today's "greige" look isn't as bad as the furniture in this picture!

Rosalind Krauss' loft.

Real wood is nice R37, but most people couldn't afford real wood unless you were building a custom home. 90% did the cheap lam 1/4" particle board type shit.

Honestly, even as a kid growing up in that era, I thought everything was ugly even back then. I thought maybe it was something I would learn to like later when I was an adult. Now of course I realize all those people, breeders mostly had very shitty taste.

I once worked in a VERY upscale gyn practice in the 90's that had had all 6 bathrooms designed by the head doctor's wife- back in the 70's - to her exact g standards. I kid you not that every single one was a different colored psychedelic explosion of bright pink/chartruse/Orange wallpaper interspersed with some sort of metallic embellishment or in faux velveted paisley. -GAK-. Of course the sink basins and counter were done in matching formica/faux marble in the same offensive colors. Oh, to sit in those bathrooms! Of course, the rest of the office, exam rooms were up to date, but no- one breathed a word about re- modeling the 'facilities since no one wanted to offend the Grande Madame. Yikes!

r41 If she is still alive, maybe you could call her to shoot the shit about the olden days. Nonchalantly, bring up the hideous bathroom decor like you didn't know it was her and see how she reacts.

I guess this person wanted to live on a space shuttle...

more autumnal wall stripes / swirls...

The conversation pit

I still have visual PTSD from that era, probably why the only place I can stand to live is in a pure white minimalist environment these days. Still recovering.

the color palette

Oh, thanks, R46. I forgot about conversation pits. Sunken Livening rooms if you were really upscale. And maybe a wet bar.

You would surely be killed by a Manson Family member in this bedroom

I see serial killers making this bedspread, to keep them company.

If you were really cool, just like hanging plants, you had a hanging chair bolted to the ceiling beam like a sling. You could spin around and they had a little bouncy, bouncy to them. Never sure when you sat in one if it was going to fall.

Designers who did the 70's decor best were Michael Taylor ("California look"), Angelo Donghia (chic, sleek NYC apartments) and Sally Sirkin Lewis (California contemporary luxe). Here is an example of Michael doing the era well:

The bedroom that just wants to get down to business: FUCK OR GET OUT!

More Michael:

Oh hell, this is giving me flashbacks... carpeted bathrooms, wicker princess chairs, macrame wall hangings, long capiz shell "chandeliers," fuzzy bathroom cozies for the kleenex box which matched the toilet lid cozy and the toilet tank cozy... and everyone seemed to own heavy stoneware type crockery.

70s bedroom sometimes look really sterile, like they're in a motel.

no comment

R56 Yes, that look screams Divorcee Ali MacGraw in Malibu to me!

70s Candice Bergen couch (and mirrors)

Angelo Donghia:

If you were an upscale NY fashion photographer, you place might have looked like this. Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors!

Angelo again - scroll down for 70's era interiors.

R63 For tasteful Laura Mars, seeing this would be worse than seeing a murder.

Special Delivery for R57

One girl I knew in college slit her wrists in her early 20s. She was gawky and a little socially goofy/awkward/zany. I think she felt she never really fit in...and I wonder if she was having trouble accepting perhaps being lesbian, too.

A composer I once worked with (David Bucknam) killed himself at 30. I believe he'd given himself until a certain age to win a Tony, then left the planet. I never found him to be particularly warm or nice...so I didn't care.

Coins or common objects cast in Lucite were really big.

Lucite Chess Sets were very cool, these are now worth thousands of dollars if you have an original. They sort of changed color depending on what angle you looked at them from.

R67 Oh god...that's in the wrong thread!

MURIEL! Please remove

Don't forget the swag lamps, baby! I refer to 70s decorating hell as swag and shag.

I'd forgotten about the mushroom motif. Mushrooms used to be on everything in the kitchen, kinda like geese and French blue in the late 80s.

Fern bars and (faux) Tiffany lamps.

I love both the 70’s California aesthetic and the darker hippie luxe Biba look as seen in those gypsy wagons.

This is a contemporary house done up in the California style. Not into the wall-to-wall carpet, but I love the rest.

This is a fabulous thread. I love gay men. And I love the 70s. But being reminded of a lot of the decor choices, it really wasn’t a great design era.

I was fascinated by these freestanding fireplaces. They seemed so chic!

My Grandparents had a house in London that they bought off a friend of my Grandfather's when the old cunt went bankrupt in '77. It was a custom-job, filled with all the gloriously seventies decor you could imagine. And, the thing is, from photographs and videos of the place, it was actually understated Seventies chic, with no oranges or browns anywhere. Oh, sure, there were shag-pile carpets and apparently my Grandmother had a thing for the Green Lady (she had two - Maude, in the living room and Harriet on the first floor landing) but I always remember that house as being *cool*.

Next door was a fucking atrocity, mind you. It used to be a 1930s detached villa - the sort that Londoners would recognise instantly and part of the Metro-land landscape - before the owners decided in 85 to have it bulldozed and some sort of post-Modern monstrosity dumped in it's place. I remember that house all too vividly - from the Memphis Group-inspired furniture (who would have thought big red balls covered in felt would be so fucking hard?) all the way through to the bath-tub that occupied the *entire* western wall of the second-floor bathroom. That house, unlike my Grandparents home, has since been destroyed (some would say the Gods of Taste smote it from orbit).

And yes, my Grandmother still has the two Green Ladies. They're currently glaring at people from Maude's vantage point in the hallway and Harriet in the downstairs lavatory.

Those free-standing fireplaces surrounded by benches and conversation pits only worked in a very large space, large enough that they didn't cramp the room.

Gone are the days of wide-open indoor spaces!

Oh, crap, I forgot about the free-standing fireplaces. My grandparents loathed theirs (had it taken out in 1992). I was warned that it would summon the Devil if ever lit. Good times.

The unsung 1970s era laundry room

WTF is a green lady? Must have been a very English thing. I have never seen one before.

Love it - more more more! The Apartment she had in Goodbye Girl. The Apartment she had in Foul Play. Cozy times.

R79 This might be useful.

This is good 1970s design to me. The house was featured in LIFE magazine, after which it unfortunately burned to the grown.

I guess someone dropped their joint.

British, R79. The actual name for the portrait was "Chinese Girl" (though I've yet to meet a Chinese girl with skin the colour of a six-week-dead Republican) and she was painted by Vladimir Tretchikoff in 1951. She was allegedly so fucking ugly that the original was never stolen from the house she hung in. However, in the 1970s, you could go into Woolworths and pick up a copy of the portrait for pennies. Apparently it was popular in the UK, Australia, South Africa and even Canada.

I should say that my Grandmother drew the line at the *other* well-known seventies painting you could pick up in Woolworths, the very-DL "Wings of Love". It's truly, monumentally, hilariously tacky. My Grandmother believed the swan to be rather...lewd.

R83 Wow. I've never seen that "art" before! I can't believe how popular it was. I just read this tidbit about it: "The most notable appearance of ‘Wings of Love’ was in a mural commissioned for a wall beside one of Saddam Hussein's many swimming pools in his palace" Yikes! Where have I been?

I do recall my grandparents, who custom built their house in the 1970s, having a giant wall mural of mountains in their basement rumpus room. I can't remember exactly what it looked like, but it was similar to the image below.

My stepmother had a pair of wicker chairs like this with peach velveteen cushions.

Another green lady for r75.

If you were very lucky as a teen, you might have been spoiled with your own phone on the same line as the entire house.

And maybe a matching AM radio.

If you were a cool guy, and could afford some nice things, you would have been the first in your circle of friend to have an LED watch. Usually gold.

Now, now, horrible seventies wall art is the subject for another thread! A potentially hilarious one, if I may drop a hint.

And R82, that house is lovely! Or at least the room in the picture is, as I said the best thing about seventies design was the use of beautiful high-quality woods. Here's another one, places like this were genuinely beautiful, especially when the sun hit the wood. Corrected treated, good-quality natural wood can look faintly iridescent in a sunbeam, if you look close.

Times were changing and in the 70's we were allowed to have these in junior high school, although it was very controversial at the time to let kids use them. It would be the equivalent of letting all the student bring in their ipads to class. It was called a Pocket Calculator because it could literally fit in your large shirt pocket. So ugly but cutting edge tech at the time. You never know when you have to do a complex math problem back then it seems.

If you were very avant-garde and had some money to burn, you might have had one of these color changing clocks. Big collector items these days. One of the few thinks I liked from that era.

You can blame the 70s for the Smiley Face.

The use of wood for walls - whatever type of wood - is something I have never learned to like. So many beautiful houses in Northern California in spectacular locations are covered in it. (Ex., Sea Ranch). Theoretically I get it - and like a nature vibe - but it’s never worked from an interior “design” standpoint. A treehouse is not a home.

R24 i liked it and it can be gorgeous.

These wood grain or plastic flip clocks were very popular at the time. Looking back, I guess the 70's were a time when people were experimenting with tracking time and made it into the general population, not just theory or prototypes. I wish there was that much experimentation today.

Crocheted Granny Square afghans on the back of couches.

R95 if you put that in a house, then you really are stuck in the 70's.

R23, let's face it. You were poor.

R94, have you ever been in a house with good-quality wood walls?

But I don't insist that you like wood walls, I myself loathe wallpaper. I've never seen a wallpaper I really liked, even when it's not peeling or bubbling at the seams the way it always does! But I like natural woods, even today I like touches of hardwood, accent walls or molding or floors, whatever can be fit in.

Here’s Johnny Carson’s house, which was built in 1978. Click the link to see more pictures. It has a lot of the design elements already mentioned. Wood work! Sunken living room! I think the architecture is quite stunning actually.

Johnny’s staircase

[quote]R94 The use of wood for walls - whatever type of wood - is something I have never learned to like.

I lean in this direction, myself. I like painted wood walls, a little distressed., just like I like exposed brick that's imperfect. But I am not at all a fan of the color brown, so would not like most plain wood walls.

An exposed hardwood floor is great, especially if it has a red or blond cast, and occassionally stripped window frames look alright, but beyond that, I keep unpainted wood to a minimum.

[quote]R84 A treehouse is not a home.

My ideal home would be a converted barn.

That would be our ideal as well, r103.

Johnny Carson's house looks like a hotel. Me no likey.

The wood ceiling and glass ceiling in Johnny’s study is gorgeous.

LI Mansion Okeka's wood panelled salon.

More Johnny.

Johnny’s sunken living room and copper fireplace.

Wilderstein in 1979.

R105 Now that you say that, I do get some hotel vibes.

Last one. Clearly the furniture in this pic is terrible.

Please paint R107 , with an eggshell finish.

I recommend something from Donald Kaufman Color

[quote]r110 Wilderstein in 1979.

That was her face?

Copper fireplace? Actually that was another of the few things I Liked about seventies décor, it was fashionable to have accents of copper everywhere. It's a very pretty metal, and can work very well.

Although of course where I lived, every damn hausfrau followed the trend by having a dozen or more copper Jello molds on her kitchen wall! And she used the damn things FOR JELLO!

R115 that is a silly decor made from the display of 2 "collections", picturesque and beat up, and its recent.

I posted Wilderstein because that was a 70's look - dilapidated grand old houses that hadn't been wrecked or restored. Also in brownstone Brooklyn - dilapidated but ornate single family townhouses.

R116 F.U.! It's my 70s prairie look, still goin' strong!!

We hooked our own beautiful rugs.

And what's wrong with Jello molds, r115?

1974

Swag lamps

in blue

In purple

In red & yellow

other colors

The 1970's Coke clock...

A reddish orange clock...

The 1970's yellow "love" clock looks like it's making a comeback...

They certainly were uniquely shaped...

Silver & blue...

I remember clocks like these with 4 big numbers on them...

Brown & sky blue kitchen

People weren't afraid of having a bold color or two in their homes back then...

An autumn colored kitchen

I remember many in-ground pools having this outlined border...

Some colorful pool chairs

1976

A lot of these pics look more 1960s than 1970s.

An impressive arch leads to an impressive fireplace...

An original room with plenty of shelving...

Spacious gold & white kitchen

A "sweet & spicy" girl's room

"Spirit Of '76" living room

A powder blue powder room...

A bright orb light over the dining table...

Is blue you? Bask in it!

A red dining area...

Australia was a fan of the 70's bright stripes

Texture texture TeXture!

A "brown & shiny" living room

Mike & Carol needed this couch for their 6 kids, 2 pets & 1 maid...

1973

I don't think any of the photos here represented what 1970s decor actually looked like in everyday life, any more than photos from Architectural Digest or the IKEA catalog would represent today's interiors. They are way too splashy from what I remember, and were just creative ideas.

I just remember that so much of the 1970s consisted of shag carpeting, plastic-covered couches and chintzy wallpapers in busy patterns. Fabrics (as in bedspreads, couches, etc.) was often something like chenille, crushed velvet, leather, etc. Colors were very dull and earth toned (avocado, mustard, carrot, etc.). Everything looked more or less like what you see on sitcoms.

And everything was wood, wood, wood, too--wood paneling, TVs in large wooden cabinets, wooden stereos, etc. My parents actually had one of these, a home stereo system encased in a huge wooden cabinet.

This thing fueled our backyard summer fun.

It would be fun to see how some of these spaces look today.

I'm with r40 and r154.

I remember being a kid in the 70's, and even then thinking that most of the interiors were ugly. There may have been some good design around back then (there is probably no era that doesn't produce SOME good designs), but most people who couldn't afford something like real wood -- but then they wouldn't have seen the point of it anyway. My grandmother's downstairs den in their classic suburban split-level house was done in exactly that cheap faux-wood paneling (in a dark shade too) that was mocked upthread.

I hated it then, and to this day have an absolute aversion to avocado green and harvest gold, and to every shade of brown.

On the other hand, I don't get the hatred around here for all 80's design: when it came along, I was a teenager and I LOVED it -- it seemed like such a breath of fresh air with its neon colors and funky, eclectic designs. And even if you do hate the style as a whole, you must admit that the original Memphis Group designs were not only truly original, they were also just plain good. As I said, no era doesn't produce at least SOME good designs.

I genuinely love 70's style. It's so bizarre. I love watching 70's movies, especially the low budget ones that were probably shot in some real person's house that hasn't been heavily set-dressed. It's like opening up a time capsule.

The Memphis Group stuff from the 80's always reminds me of a children's play place. Like those indoor playgrounds like Discovery Zone or something. Something about all the bright colors and weird shapes. It seems like you could have a huge fight in one of those rooms and no one would get hurt, because the material looks like it would bounce back or something.

1972 San Antonio time capsule home

The outside

The outside...

the stove...

the stove...

The pantry wall of the kitchen

Desk area

Vaulted ceiling & plenty of glass...

The sitting room.

The other side of the sitting room...

The front entrance

The dining area off the kitchen

The other side of the room in the first photo

Alternate view of kitchen

Its a relaxing space. Could be rescued keeping some of the original decor and materials.

We had “coppertone” appliances. Dark as shit. And what was with those 3 foot tall table lamps?

R174. I agree.

Don't forget the plastic covered furniture

Egg chair! Which were actually pretty cool with music.

R177 I grew up in the 70s & never knew anyone or heard of anyone who had plastic on their furniture.

It must have been a rare trend.

Take a look at this 1972 couch.

Tufted Walnut Case Sofa

1970's red sofa

Art Deco meets the 1970s

1970s Sofa Bed Gallery.

I love the grey ribbed couch (with the wood hand rests) in the middle.

A large black sofa with a whopping 20 sections!

A rust colored velvet sofa =

R180 That couch would look so lonely and sad each night if you didn't have any friends, and no one ever came over : (

You'd just end up hiding in your room each night so you didn't have to see it.

I don't know about that R187. The anti social types who are pet owners could really enjoy it. The kind that have a couple of St. Bernards or Doberman Pinschers. Plenty of room there for a big bunch of dogs (I have several cats so that would keep them from climbing on me all the time).

Here's a wild ride of 70s designs...

The shaggy (shag doesn’t adequately describe this atrocity) carpeting in the steps looks like a furry lava flow trying to escape the horror that is that wallpaper. Kindly note the framed textile art on the landing as well.

Here's a unique chair =

A Brazilian root chair =

These chairs look like they were made in 2018 =

French cinema chair =

I'd kill to have these but they are too expensive =

Italian lounge chairs =

I would've guessed that the "sawed in half" look was a 70s idea =

What a bizarre lounge chair =

Looks like the designer got this idea while walking along a pier =

Good Lord! I had the sheets that match R13.

Rocks rock

Audio geeks get picked on in these threads but a boss hi-fi rig was as much a part of a living room as the furniture. Well, for guy's guys anyway.

A lot of physically striking and technically accomplished designs back then..

The great Empire compay

The amazing Ohm Walsh series

Design Acoustics-multi-dimensional briliance.

Acoustic Research LST Flagship of the New England sound.

My memory colors the whole decade like a polaroid - rich saturated colors. Pollution made for orange/tan skies back then.

View the materials in light of the energy crises. The lower ceiling, alternate heating source, dense carpet, and cheap paneling were designed to retrofit non-energy-efficient living spaces. The post-war building boom created many more badly built pink houses than those featured in magazines.

for 70s decor done right and classy watch Woody Allen's Interiors. Beautiful homes galore, quite minimal.

Interior of Citroen SM. A great example of the 1970s aesthetic applied to automobile interior design.

If you are interested in 1970s design "The Great Funk" by Thomas Hine is worth checking out. Roughly speaking, it is about cultural trends of the period were reflected in design. The same guy wrote "Populuxe", and they are both excellent reads.

Waterbeds, people!

Check out this photo from Vogue 1970, I'm amazed how much this looks like it could have been taken yesterday save maybe a few minor things.

Great thread!

1970s Octagonal Mirror

Macrame wall hanging. These were everywhere.

That book looks interesting.

I like this image of Mummy explaining how you must be sent off to summer camp, so she and Daddy can explore the swingers lifestyle in Mykonos.

I do think it would be fun to have one room in a house done in this, I don't know what we call it..."naive" style (?) It always reminds me of a child's playroom.

A laundry room would be good like that....though also a basement room. It would be like descending back into the past!

House plants. As many as possible, please.

You're never too poor to buy a spider plant.

The Jet Desk

The Elephant Desk

Brass Apple Paperweight

Brass Insect Paperweight

Lucite Dice Paperweight

Executive Desk Phone

Desk Scale

Mod TV Tray

Mod TV Tray #2

Lucite Penguin

Everything in the 1970s was about Earth tones and "back to nature." Not just in home decor but in products and product packaging. In appliances, the colors offered were avocado green, harvest gold and a warm reddish brown. Lots of stained wood instead of painted wood, lots of shag carpeting, hanging lamps and house plants. Wild colors and plastics were out and the "natural look" was in. I bought a waterbed in 1976, and I still have the frame, though I hve a regular mattress in it now, not a water mattress.

UFO Desk Lamp

And just remember how everything smelled. Cigarettes, strong cologne and perfume, incense, patchouli oil.....

I like this room design but it only has a few 70s items...

Designs Ideas For 70s Homes