Home Decor

Oil paintings and antique guns hanging on the mahogany walls, fresh flowers in the foyer once a week, leather, mallards, and antiques.

Art Deco. I LOVED it.

Dag, you had The Gulf Stream as wall art. We had needlepoint pictures of German children knitting.

The godawful Christina’s World.

R1 = Bunny MacDougal

My parents' house was a bit schizo. It was a modest 18th Century house consumed by additions in all directions, with four living rooms and a dining room at the core, each room up or down one step from the room or rooms that it adjoined.

There was a knotty pine den with a flying taxidermied mallard and summer curtains of fiberglass or nylon or some unkind to the touch fabric in ghastly pale green and a sculpted wool rug and skirted upholstered chairs and sofa, vaguely Early American with a couple of Chippendale style small chests and magazine rack, a couple of not bad 1950s modern style black metal bookshelves with brass supports, and some brassy lamps in more of the vaguely Colonial taste. There was a large mid-19thC painting of a ship at sea, otherwise small framed prints.

The most sunken of the living rooms had large windows on either long wall and a fireplace the width of the far narrow wall. It had a floor of flagstone, Danish Modern furniture, pole lamps, a wire rack for magazines and some low bookcases. Incongruously, a couple of refinished Victorian oak small cabinets which held liquor that was used only at Xmas, maybe. There were some framed prints of forgettable subjects. There were a couple of vaguely mod-ish pictures -- stylized flowers made in a sort of mosaic with wood and colorful petals of lino or something like.

The other two living rooms originally had mohair upholstered late 1920s furniture (horrid, but I loved it as a kid and still like good mohair) and more sculpted wool carpets. The furniture was Duncan Phyfe repros with vasiform supports and splayed legs ending in brass animal paw casters. There were various geegaws from various houses of my parents' familes, curious when I was a child but ghastly to contemplate now: cranberry glass, cut glass, shaving mugs with Victorian portraiture, a portrait of my grandfather as a young man that looked like my father as a young man and like me. Some needlework framed things. Small shelves filled with more oddbits of glass, ceramic, and silver. When my parents decuded they were not poor, they sent all the mohair furniture to exile and did the rooms over in a sort of Maime Eisnhower/Martha Mitchell taste, 1970s cornflower blue everything, including wall-to-wall carpet in wool that would burn your feet or arms if you scuffed against it, brassy Colonial style lamps, a hideous "Gone-withe-the Wind" double globe lamp with painted roses. And bowls everywhere for nuts or candies. There were some framed prints of forgettable subjects.

The dining room was in the center of all of this and had little wall space for all the doors. There was a late 1950s rusticly Colonial wallpaper, replaced in the 1970s with something a little less butterchurn in style, more stylized allover floral but a backdrop to acres of Ethan Allen Colonial style dining furniture., There was a sort of staging area at one end of the farthest from the kitchen with an early 19thC built-in cupboard filled with ugly ceramics and silverplate, and a collection of way too low antique rocking chairs (I hate rocking chairs with a passion.)

The kitchen, semi-separated from the dining room, was renovated in the 1960s about the time I was born and the rest of the ground floor was a series of service rooms, sewing room, pantry, gun room, laundry room, bathroom., all at the rear of the house.

That painting made little OP grow up to be gay.

It was odd. Dutch Masters' paintings with Greek vases everywhere in a mid-century modern Eichler house with mid-century modern furniture straight outta Mad Men, which is why I could not watch that show.

We lived in an open plan 1960s ranch house. The living and dining room areas were painted off-white and my mom, who worked at a high school, made them into a gallery with paintings and drawings she bought from student art shows. One of those students went on to have a career as a professional artist and that painting of his is still a prized possession.

[quote]That painting made little OP grow up to be gay.

Could be. It was more of an omen though. We had a little sloop about the same size down in the harbor and their marriage was on the rocks. Mom took up "distressing" furniture out in the driveway with a bicycle chain. She knew all their names. Small town. Thwack! "That one's for you Lorraine!"

Early 70s bedroom—three boys a la The Brady Bunch.

We had matching Peter Max sheets. My mom was a wiz at contact paper—she cut a psychedelic pattern and covered the cheap bifold doors of our closet.

A real hipster she was ;).

R4 I had that in my freshman dorm room at Harvard—Thayer Hall

Well, actually it was just summer school at Harvard ;)

We had this painting on the wall.

R12, don't you mean at a school outside of Boston?

Me? Early chaos designed by an overworked mother.

Federal period house on a bluff about 50 feet above the Atlantic. Mahogany furniture, most of the case pieces were antiques, lots of oriental rugs, a paneled library with bound sets of books and magazines, really elaborate window treatments with wooden Venetian blinds under acres of draperies. Lots of nautical-themed stuff: clipper ship models, even the dishes had the Flying Cloud on them. It was kind of schizophrenic in that a beach house is supposed to be relaxed and casual and aside from the den (the only room on the first floor besides the kitchen with a TV set) it was pretty formal.

It was a year-round house but we were there mostly in the summer so we were outdoors or at the beach more than indoors. And for the most part, entertaining was on the porches or on the lawns overlooking the water.

I was a high school striver going to Harvards’s “gifted” summer school. I didn’t actual get into Harvard when I formally applied (only one person I knew from the program did—she’s an MIT professor), but I earned full credit for two freshman classes at Berkeley. I have zero regrets for not going to school “near Boston.” All of the kids I knew from that summer did quite well for themselves at other places.

Harvard’s^

We lived in Honolulu. Trader Vic's Moderne.

Anyone have those little fife and drum player slipcovers?

R20 No, but in advance of the Bicentennial, my mother painted all the furniture in my brother's and my bedroom white and decoupaged American Eagles stickers on the twin bed headboards, dressers, and side tables. She added a white eagle lamp with blue shade, a few of those bicentennial syrup bottles, and navy blue and red bedspreads.

Decoupage was a thing. Does anyone still do it?

Home Interiors everywhere.

That big spoon/ladle thing with the grapes inside. Those wall things with the little orange glass cups.

Geese in blue bonnets.

R22 my parents kept a pic of them using NEW YORKER magazine covers as decoupage in the guest bath. They were way ahead of their time.

…it was 1957 in Belmont MA

The most impersonal, nondescript furnishings. A piano that no one played but my mother grew up poor and a piano meant you were middle class.

A friend of mine described the decor as "Early Motel". My mom loved that.

Lot of upper middle class eldergays here. Decor is an overstatement for the basics of survival we had.

Terrariums, wrought iron, macrame owls, olive wood furniture with latticework - was it Italian or Mexican?

[quote] 1957 in Belmont MA

Former home of the John Birch Society?

In short, overstuffed. Everything that had padding was stuffed to the max. My parents liked furniture that was comfortable.

We lived in a hollow tree. There's only so much you can do.

Everything in my house was brown and grey. The outside of the house, the couches, the wooden shingles - so very 70s - of the inside walls of my childhood bedroom

The family dynamic was constipated, leaden, dissociated and angry.

R5 I would be honored

Very 70s - blue-green shag carpet, dark paneled walls, ceiling beams, huge stone fireplace, heavy Mediterranean furniture, bright floral couch.

Fake colonial/"early american". Pine furniture, fake tile linoleum, duck decoys, wallpaper not paint, gold eagle hanging over the garage doors. Smaller version of said eagle in the upstairs hall.

Mostly beige, brown and off-white.

Faux Colonial / Early American. Lots of browns and tans . I still have the dresser they bought at Ethan Allen for our boyhood bedrooms. As a gayling who was triggered by all the plaid and brass I craved rich colors and fabrics.

R29 Belmont means McLeans to me. Newton here.

It could have been a lot worse, OP

That painting always gave me the creeps, OP. Even more so than this freaky one:

We lived in one of those old Spanish Colonial Revival homes in Southern California that was built in 1927. It had all the classic details. Sometime during the 1960s, Spanish-looking furniture became popular, so my parents decided to redecorate the living room and dining room with that style so that the house and furniture went with each other. Everything was big and dark. There was one piece they bought that I always thought was pretty wild, sort of weird. It was this humongous coffee table. It had a large very thick piece of glass as the top, and underneath it had these four dark chains coming from a carved wood centerpiece, each chain going to a similarly carved corner leg. I eventually discovered that it was a design by Arturo Pani. My sister still has it, though it doesn't match anything else in her place. It's just sentimental.

Oh gag R41 ! I just pictured every living room of every one of my Miami relatives in the 70s !Crushed velvet by the yard ,all covered in plastic. Ive been in the world a long time and Ive encountered many people from many parts of the world yet no one had taste as bad as my Miami relatives. Did I mention the rain lamps ?

How big was your wall spoon? How big was your wall fork?

1850s home in the Berkshires in need of renovation. Downstairs was carpeted wall to wall with dark green shag when my folks bought the place in 1985. They were collectors so my father built a custom window shelf to show off the cobalt bottles they had.

Furniture was mismatched. Some came from Montgomery Ward and some were antique pieces, like our kitchen table. My mother wallpapered some of the rooms with 80s flower and vine patterns. She also painted a duck wearing a hat on the side of the claw foot bath tub. My brother has Revolutionary soldier wallpaper. My room was painted light blue, but I painted the sills a cream color. My first home improvement project!

[quote]Did I mention the rain lamps ?

OMG!

Pierre Deux

I found an unpublished short story about my parents’ divorce. Our cottage was described as looking like the three bears lived there. Books, plants, lots of small pictures climbing the walls, casement windows with little panes…

Our Living room was a lemon pledge color, with a long brown couch that had brown embossed leaves on it. It was the couch my granda died on, and the couch my late bf lay on while I introduced him to the movie Pink Flamingos. On each side were brown side tables with drawers, and atop two huge, ornate brown lamps that my aunt made for my grandma in ceramics, and a wall covered with brown paneling with a pine colored hutch built into the wall. The carpet was meow mix/cat puke colored. By the front door was a beehive-shaped amber-colored glass swag lamp, which I still have, and a huge overstuffed orange pillow I used to love lying on next to a yellow cat piss covered bean bag chair.

My mother got her decorating ideas from Bewitched.

In the basement rec-room, typical knotty pine with acoustic- tiled ceiling, we had two wagon wheel light fixtures. Each had four lanterns with little copper lampshades. I still have scars on my scalp from walking into them after my growth spurt.