70s Inspiration

rAs a kid in the70s, I have an appreciation for the music, the clothes and yes, even the decor of the era.  Granted, you won't spot me wearing a polyester outfit anytime soon, but I loved the unique style of the era, especially the colors used in decorating.  I can remember my parents home had wall to wall orange shag carpeting, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever!  As a matter of fact, many things were orange in our home...from the orange in our sofa and pillows, to the curtains and accessories.  Orange was king back then!  I still embrace the orange in my home today, but with more of a vintage modern with a splash of Ikea mixed in.  On a recent post in the Apartment Therapy blog, they were stating that orange was making a comeback as a popular color to use in the home....I didn't realize that it ever went away as a popular color.  If you look in many decorating catalogs such as Blu Dot and CB2, you will see that orange is alive and well, and still quite popular.  Below are some vintage photos of my parent's and grandparent's house from the 70s and 80s.  Enjoy the retro stylin'!

This was my grandmother's living room circa 1983.  Love the picture behind the sofa.  I believe that the sofa was purchased some time in the mid 70s, because I can remember my grandmother oohing and ahhing over it when it was new.  The sofa is mostly green with some orange accent colors.  That mullet on my sis just cracks me up!

This was also taken at my grandparent's house.  It is sometime in the early 70s.  I dig the carved out shelf with the mirrored back.  My parents had those in our first home too.  Also digging the giant glass vase on the shelf.  My grandmother had two of them, one for each shelf...they were huge!

This photo is somewhat orangey because it was taken at Christmastime and was not developed until June (see the date on the corner?).  This was our second house (need to scan photos from the first house)...we had gold and brown shag carpeting and of course that fabulous green and gold striped chair we were sitting on.  The stair railing behind us was painted white with gold splatter accents..which was very popular at the time.

Here was our orange sofa in all its glory!  This was a rare shot of me actually smiling with my braces, I rarely smiled and showed the metal.  Love the orange pillows and the viking footed vase in front of me (my mom had 2 of them).

The 70s were alive and well in the 80s...at least in my parents home.  This picture is around circa 1985.  The kitchen sported a dark brown refrigerator, to match the dark brown cabinets, with the ugly fake butcher block countertop.  Notice the fugly fake brickwork on the back wall?  My parents did that intentionally!!  Back in the 70s that was all the rage in decorating!  The orange curtains behind me were in the dining room.  We had the same color curtains in the living room as well.  In the late afternoon, the living room and dining room would be filled with an orange haze.

I've always loved that wall hanging behind the sofa.  Not sure whatever became of it.  I did see a similar one several years ago at a store, but they wanted big bucks for it.  I've been on the hunt for one similar to that one, with the same orange colors...but I don't want to spend buckets of cash. By the way, that weird spidery thing on the right hand side is our spider plant.