One of the houses is maybe 10 min from our house.

I think one of the commenters summed it up best. I assume she means these houses as examples.

"When it is good, it is great. But wow is there a lot of bad to sort through in the 70s."

If you haven't already checked out RetroRenovation, be sure to visit this site. There is more 50's/60's emphasis, but there is a range, and some people are really into the 70's.

Here is a link that might be useful: RetroRenovation

I actually think there is a lot of bad to sort through in Most periods of design, including this one. A lot of the current neo-eclectic architecture is overwrought and cheaply executed. We don't recognize it so much, yet because it is the current taste and we see so much of it that we are used to it. And if you talk about it too much you get accused of being some kind of snob.

There were a couple of big problems in the 70s. One is that it was a period of relatively free-form design innovation, and a lot of innovation is not so great and doesn't go anywhere in the long run. Also, a lot of innovation pre-dates the adequate technology to make it work very well (Frank Lloyd Wright's work suffered from this even though he is considered a genius).

The other is that it was a period of high interest rates. A lot of 1970s design is hampered by cheap materials and construction methods because the money went into paying the interest rates.

Thirdly I think since it was a period during which heavy drinking was more acceptable and there was a bit of dabbling in drugs in our society at all levels--including the tastemakers--and it was the period of the sexual revolution-- that there was some influence on design. I had an instruction in design school who was at his busiest during the seventies who said that he definitely did large sectional conversation pits and tables with upholstered edges and mirrored bathrooms and bedrooms for certain types of clients particularly with heavy partying and sexual freedom as part of the equation.

These design Ideas then trickled down through the culture in general., where partying was not a part of it. (Although when my parents moved to our very small town in the 1960s a woman warned my parents about associating too closely with a group of couples who apparently had "key parties" --and this was in the middle of nowhere).

Thanks, Pal. Just wondering what you think of the renovation, especially the kitchen, that was done in the house in the article.

That the neighborhood is full of more large colonials is definitely true, and people around here generally tend to think of houses like that as an eyesore.

Thanks for sharing the article.. though like you said is the case for you, my house isnt nearly as grand an example as those featured. Still.. like you, I can't walk into this house with arts and crafts (I tried an A&C dining table and it looked silly) or any of a number of other styles. This house -- more than any other I've lived in-- wants to dictate the style. It's funny because it's pretty nondescript (as many 60s ranch houses were) .. I never had these issues when I lived in much much older homes (though they were bigger so perhaps that had something to do with it).

I am about to paint my whole house in a color I'd never have considered-- why? because when I put it on an accent wall, it just brought the room to life. All the "current" colors fell flat... but this color with a slightly retro vibe made the tired old 60s kitchen *almost* work, it made the swirled ceilings become a feature rather than a vestige of some long gone design impulse.

Each time I try to fight the house to make something I love work in it-- the house wins. I can keep fighting it to be something it isn't-- or I can accept it as it is. I am doing the latter and it's kind of fun. I am loving watching it take shape.

Realistically, it will take years to take it where I want to go --and I am not trying to be too literal to the period (but again, my house isnt a great specimen of the era)-- still, I am really starting to enjoy it and it's so much easier than trying to stuff a mismatched style into my little shoe box! :)

Funkyart, I've seen your home, and it is similar to ours in many ways. We've been able to do updates and furnish to make it our own. Would we love a home with more character--absolutely!!

I do have a white distressed BR suite that I bought around 2000-2001, BUT since the BR is at the other end, I don't feel the need to have a more 60's theme with a Broyhill Brasilia or Heywood-Wakefield set. The kitchen, LR, and hall need more cohesiveness since they are all open. Unfortunately, no color tile bathroom here tough many homes here have them.

This post was edited by gsciencechick on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 11:23

I think the renovated kitchens in the two houses are "compatible" with the houses. The white one is probably a bit slick, but that's okay.

I think you have to be careful not to get rid of too much of the organic-ness of the contemporary of this period. But I also don't think the house is necessarily a vacuum or a museum, so as long as the new work "fits", I don't think it has to look completely period/original.

I am not sure why so many interiors were so dark during this period. My parents' library had black wallpaper and oil-drop foiled lampshades in the 70s and you had to turn the lights on during the day--and I knew people whose entire interiors were all dark. I am not against dark rooms, but I wonder what was going on culturally that influenced so much darkness. In one of the failed "pedestrian malls" here, from the 1970s, the lighting was dull architectural bronze with smoked glass and the benches and tables were weathered raw wood, and the pavers were dark. Part of the rational was that it was a dirty city and it was just going to Get dirty, so it might as well Look dirty right from the beginning.

The 70s is a hard erra to do well. I have seen it done though. I was in a home once that had cream shag carpeting and it looked great. She had redone the entire home in the modern versen and colors of the materials that it had origenally. It was creams browns and golds with the occassional color pop like her purple couch. It came across as updated with a nod at the houses past. Alot of ranch homes and split levels were mass produce in the 70s time frame. Thier just basically a box you can take apart the dressing and redo easily. That cann,t be said about alot of period specific arciterture . Where you really have to tear apart the home inside and out to change the look. I came from a small town that was almost entirely built with them. Unfortunaley the true area specific homes like the Aframes seemed to have disappeared entirely from that area. I,ve heard lots of them had structural problems.

Cheap building practices aside, you often get more bang for your square foot than you do with many current builder's houses.

Here is what we face now:

Bedrooms with one good spot to put a bed (if you are lucky). The rooms are big, but the window placement and sill height as well as closet door placement all interfere with placement of the bed (particularly if you want twins for a couple of kids).

"Great" rooms with lots of open space and little wall space that aren't really big enough for a real floating furniture plan, and if they are-- you can't have any lamps in the furniture groupings anyway because there are no floor outlets.

Large master suites that are bigger than kitchens but still aren't too useful for multiple users unless you are comfortable watching someone on the toilet.

I have a client who moved into a house a third the size of her large house and the bedrooms were smaller but still allowed better layouts, the living areas were smaller but had decent wall space to put a furniture arrangement against, and the sink outside the small master bath at least allowed a second person to get ready while someone else was using the bath proper. It has the problem of some mean little windows and narrow hallways and such, but there is more practicality in it all, too.

My 1972 post and beam house came with shag carpeting, gold harvest appliances, popcorn ceilings, gold-mirrored walls, fake-leather bar, 1" x 1" brown-tiled bathroom counters, acoustic tile ceilings, rough cedar-planked walls, the craggy rock fireplaces and shiny wallpaper. The only thing it didn't come with is the cedar-planked ceilings. We got rid of everything except the rough cedar-planked walls (they are in the basement and I actually like them) and the craggy rock fireplace. The fireplace matches our environment in which the house is located so it was kept and I'm glad we don't have the cedar-planked ceilings. Some houses in our neighbourhood do have them and Pal is correct in that they suck up the light.

re the 70s dark colors, I remember when avocado, burnt orange, harvest gold, amber or smokey glass, & wood paneling seemed fresh & modern. It was all so cocooning -- mellow, to use a phrase of the era. Those colors and materials reflected the organic, back-to-the-earth mentality of the day. All that Mad Men era minimalism and pastel color seemed as artificial and overly perky as Doris Day at Woodstock.

(And now that we're more nuanced & broadminded, who knows, maybe Doris actually enjoyed Woodstock...)

I loved the article and the pictures; I think, when done right, a home like that has a nice vibe.

Our 70s home is small and the kitchens/baths were cheaply built and were/are at the ends of their lives by the time we bought the home when it was 30 years old. With the remodeling we've done, it doesn't really say "70s home" , probably b/c it was so bland to begin with.

Love everyone's comments! It seems like some 70's homes have more character than others. Mine is more on the "character" side. It has some architectural features that could enhance the whole place with the right decor. I'm still figuring out the last part about the "right" decor!

Gscienceschick: RetroRenovation is fabulous! I checked out their 70's lighting catalogs. How come we had dreadful fake bronze/crackled smoky glass fixtures instead of those beauties? I have already replaced all the lighting because it was so dim.

Palimpsest: Thank you for the historical perspective. It helps understand the context the houses were built in. I'm not American, so it is very educating for me.

Funkyart: I wonder if you have a picture of your accent wall somewhere on this site? I'd love to see your creative solution.

It appears that in the 70's the pendulum swung from the openness of the mid-century architecture toward a more cloistered and intimate feel. I do like an earthy palette and I think it can be done tastefully. The see-through mid-century modernist interiors are impressive but I never could picture myself living in such a place without putting ceiling-to-floor draperies over the window walls.

I'd like to find a balance - having some airy and bright spaces together with a few cocoon-like rooms. Our house has a potential for it. We have a bright dining room (a slider to a 2nd story deck and a large window on the adjoining wall) and roomy kitchen facing south, and we like to have meals alfresco on our large 2nd story deck. At the same time our two downstairs rooms are dark, although the floors are only about a foot below grade. I'm toying with an idea of re-making the downstairs in an Art-Deco-ish style - cozy, cocoon-like and in a rich color palette.

Speaking of an ultimate blank state for a home, the only examples I can think of are new construction condos in Moscow, Russia. Most of them are sold "bare bones" - no interior finishes, lighting, cabinets, floors, etc. The assumption is that the new owners would rip out the builder grade stuff anyway and redo the interiors to their taste. There's no landscape to influence the style either since those residences are in high-rise apartment blocks. There are all sorts of creative interior solutions, some interesting and some outlandish. Unlike in the U.S., the "resale value" concept hasn't taken a hold in Russia yet. For those who are curious, here's a link to a interior finish/remodel company in Moscow area that serves middle-class customers. The top video is the apartment at the time of purchase. The bottom video shows the work done by the company on it. These owners opted for a modernist design, but if you click on the links in the top section of the vertical bar on the left, you'll see other projects done in a more traditional style. Many of them are fairly pedestrian - recessed lights, IKEA bathrooms, etc, but I like browsing such portfolios for occasional novel ideas. One of the projects on this site features a bathroom with a plaid yellow/black floor tile. I have yet to find tile like that!

Here is a link that might be useful: Interior Finish and Remodel Company in Moscow

Well, Lana, my soon to be home is definitely not one of those with lots of character, but it has lots of history -- it was my grandparents' house for the last 25 yr. It is a typical modest, late 60s ranch. I will be updating lots over time-- but just paint and floors at the moment. Kitchen, trim, doors, windows, basement to come over time.

I wouldnt call my color choice "creative" exactly-- but it is true that I had not planned to carry it through the whole house until I saw it on the wall (a few friends saw it and cheered me on too). It's not such an odd color-- it's just slightly left of center-- but definitely not one of the colors we're seeing lots of these days.

Here's a photo of the BM Anjou Pear...

Funkyart,

Thanks for sharing your picture. This is a pleasant color! I'm thinking of painting our downstairs rooms in a light shade of yellow, so I jotted down your color name.

I also notice some interesting texture on your ceiling. Could that be played up?

Apparently, golden tones were very popular in Art Deco designs, like this bedroom at Eltham Palace, England (the picture and link to the source with more interior views of the palace are below).

Could it be that Harvest Gold was a mass-market descendant of the Art Deco golden palette?

In the 20's-30's not many people could furnish their homes entirely in the new style. Most average folks owned only a few mass-produced Art Deco pieces and maybe put up the trendy wall paper in a room or two in their small residences. In the 70's the legacy of Art Deco seemed to be re-interpreted as the new affordable luxury modern style, all mass-market bad taste excesses included.

Here is a link that might be useful: Eltham Palace, England