kennedytarheel When I glanced at the first photo of the round, green shag rug I thought it was grass growing under the table! What was I thinking?! My parents have the original 1968 burnt orange shag carpet in their den...I have been begging them to get rid of it for decades! Maybe I need to "feel the love" for that ratty old carpet!!!!

1annabelle Just shoot me......

Lily Gahagan Speaking of avocado in the kitchen, have you seen Jonathan Adler's Kohler collaboration?




You can read more about it here:
http://www.us.kohler.com/us/KOHLER-Colors-Featuring-Jonathan-Adler-for-the-Kitchen/content/CNT14600013.htm

shelmae7 please no, not the '70s.

Tile-Stones Do love the fireplace!

Rough Linen I bought a bright green shag wool carpet from Heals and dragged it around through four moves, back in the seventies. I loved it until a cat peed on it.

docilana No way I'll ever be convinced that shag carpets are attractive.....

Lanie Brown Oh, yay! I love the cool stuff about the 70s with an updated edge!

olldbobbi OH no, NOT WOOD PANELING!!! And avocado green, never! Love the sheepskin bean bag, and the swinging chair and the shag rug.

midmodfan I think it all depends.

Avocado green accessories - yes. A whole kitchen - no!
One nicely paneled wall (i.e. not rustic) - yes. Every wall in knotty pine - no!
A large modern shag rug adding texture to a sleek room - yes. A too small green shag within a 'retro' style interior - no.

Love the swinging chairs and all Scandinavian inspired decorative items in that photo.

Lanie Brown I think I'm excited because I was such an insecure geek in the 70s and this is my chance to try again to be cool...

Adrian Johnson I have an old friend, a college prof (chemistry) who bought a house furnished with avacado shag carpet, avacado green suite in the bathroom, and "coin gold" (=mustard) drapes. Her only modification to the house's decor was to fill it with books and basic Ikea furniture. I've been trying to get her to update the decor for a score years now, but she's such a nerd she says, "What's wrong with it? It's not worn out." One of her students sent her a link to this blog (she has no interest in interior decorating) but just to annoy, she sent it on to me. Now she thinks her house is cool and trendy, instead of a nightmare time-warp. It's all your fault. . .

msslynne I have a white shag rug that I love, adore wood paneling 'done right' -I would not mind avocado so much-but think it looks better in the little travel trailers. Some 70's inspired is very good-but it seems a bit sqaure and too cold to me and would mix it with bit of rustic myself.

shawnaleeah I don't understand the wallpaper photo. What is the white on it?

onthefence I lived with every one of those things except the wall paper. I always believed they were SO bad they'd never come back. I was obviously wrong!

I will say though, the color they're referring to above as "avocado" is nothing like the avocado of the 70s. That was a dark, muddy lifeless green. The color above is pretty zippy. I don't know that i could take a whole room of it, but splashes and accents are nice.

JAN MOYER When a thing can come BACK it also means it has a tendency to go OUT YET AGAIN. Pick your spots on all fads, unless you have the bucks for do-overs every few years. An avocado shag for a couple hundred, or screaming orange toaster won't ruin your retirement. On the other hand, a kitchen is a very big deal for most.
Perhaps this is why I so love clean lined fine antiques, classically styled simple upholstery pieces juxtaposed with modern art, and the pops of trendy items limited to that which can go quietly into the night.....painlessly. Some things are forever, and the reverse is also painfully true.

Julia Wooters I guess the '60's have appeal for 20 somethings, having lived through them I don't want to go back.

Always Nesting You had me at rattan! Love it. Is there a difference between rattan and wicker?

frenchdecor Ultra trends come and go, classic and high quality is timeless trend. When kitchen designer told me what I wanted is not a trend now I didn't waste her or my time, kitchen is not a vase or dress. Though not costly accessories or painting walls I don't mind to change from time to time.

Ann Smitt Oh NO, they're bringing the dark, drab era back. The 70's home furnishings of my parent's gen. were either avocado, orange or brown. Even the accessories were the same colors and Owls, Mushrooms & pics of ladies from the 1900's were part of the decor. I won't be revisiting this era in my home, except maybe a rattan fan chair, a la Morticia Addams. ;-)

riconsd All the decorators that painted paneling just got a "Get-Out-of-He##-Free" card. All it will take is some paint remover and elbow grease. =O

Timothy OMG
HELP , just say no to paneling !

Amanda Simons Well I was excited to see wood paneling on this list and then I read the comments. Rats! My living is solid pecan paneling.

karmakshanti Reuse, recycle, repurpose, folks. You don't "bring back" the 70's in work like this, any more than you bring back the Victorian Era by accents with patterns from the late 19th century. The components of any era are stifling if you use too many of them or they are overdone. All of the past remains part of the design vocabulary, and perspective on a period's details is not a blanket endorsement of its excesses. That is why such things as antiques endure.

Some of this above is pretty close to the edge in its use of retro details, but not all of it. And I can't see where any of it is over the top. A good deal written here is not about the rooms, but about autobiographical prejudices. We should take the rooms for what they are, and examine the retro details for what new design purposes they can serve.

xowen Yay for the 60's and 70's. I'm so tired of the 2000's+ faux Tuscany vibe. It's also looking super dated now. I would rather live in a vivid environment than a beige box.

stargazer51 Just say no to avocado green kitchen cabinets!

gillianne Wood paneling aside (as long as it's not knotty pine or sporting a red-tinged varnish), noooooooo...........

olldbobbi stargazer51, AND appliances! I don't even like avocado's to eat, I'm surely not going to decorate with them !!!

CAROLE MEYER OHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO! Really? Again?.............ok, fine.

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thegreenbee My mother in law still has the bright green shag, wall to wall, in her living room. Plus wood paneling in several areas. I wouldn't exactly say her old country house is en vogue, though, bless her heart. (I am sure that carpet is a microcosm of death for my poor husband and his allergies!)

woolylam Yeah! I loved my hand me down avocado stove. So sick of the limited choices in appliances unless you are willing to cough up a lot of money! Now that I think of it I have a gold office, moss green dining room and pumpkin colored living room. I must really have loved the seventies more than I thought! Although the only way I would use shag is in a throw rug (love my wood floors).

nancyviau My first design project was when I was 16 and my mom gave me free reign to decorate my bedroom. The first thing I purchase was a red and pink wall to wall shag carpet. You know the old saying "you can never go home again" Thank goodness!

JAN MOYER nancyviau
OMG! My first "design" was for same room and probably same time period! Red and pink, and I will add that the sheets which co-ordinated with my comforter ensemble....went in the trash when I finally admitted the cheesy muslin content was like sleeping on a bed of toast crumbs. I am incredibly picky about sheets ever since........: )

honolulululu After 10 years of hating it.......I just painted a wood paneled room, and now LOVE IT LOVE IT!! I want to shoot myself for not doing it sooner. I would never contemplate shag again.... Too hard to keep clean. As far as avocado goes......hated it then, hate it more now.

Cynthia Lemmon I remember getting our first SHAG carpet.. it was green, but more lime. And, the installers told us to get a yard rake to rake it and keep it looking fresh! Shag was not dense like it is now. My daughter now has a blue shag rug that has multiple heights. The only drawback was we had to get a special vacuum cleaner that didn't get STUCK in the tall rug.. LOL.. Dyson to the rescue! And Mom put the velvet walpaper in a little tiny bathroom and it had shiny silver between the velvet patches. This was all so long ago, but I do remember that my brother and I would go in to pet the wallpaper.. LOL. It eventually peeled. Not a great idea for a humid room... :-(

mainstreetschool OMG! My first design was my high school bedroom. Gold shag! Bed foundation on the floor, zebra accent rug and corduroy curtains, and lamb skin throw on bed. I thought it was so cool.

Amy R I remember moving into our new house ten years ago with my parents, and my brother and I complaining because of the avocado green toilet and awful bathroom. Avocado green? No thanks. I waited years for them to remodel and get rid of that toilet. I'm traumatized. Who the heck thinks it's a good idea again?!?!

As for shag, I think shag looks gross-- too hard to keep clean. Woodpaneling is awful. I'll wait for these trends to pass-- 70's, ew.

Amanda Simons I really don't get all the hate on wood paneling. FAUX paneling, yes, but authentic wood can be really beautiful. I guess it depends on how you decorate.

olldbobbi Amanda Simons, I think it also depends on its age and how well it's been cared for.

Sharon McLeod I had the rattan swing chair!!!!

frenchdecor Don't panic, yet. Now only stainless appliances, black granite, and gray walls are a MUST have.

olldbobbi And let us not forget macrame owls :))

JAN MOYER oldbobbi
I think you left off the macrame plant hangers and the ever lovely spider plant.........

olldbobbi Jan, I liked my macrame hanger with a piggy back plant !!!

pollyc1 Oh no, no, no, no!!!! Just painted our paneling finally! I love the clean fresh look. I don't think dark paneling will ever come back! It was a bad idea then, and a bad idea now!

frenchdecor As I find some trends odd (for me) I simply don't follow them. I think we have many odd design ideas like glass and steel cube cottages or all white cottage interiors (see a lot). Obviously some think it's nice and fresh progressive design ideas. We had wood paneled hunter cabin and I think it was very appropriate. When we first came to Canada uncle's town home had feature wall wood paneled, I thought it's odd, but his paneled farm house felt so cozy!! Paneling maybe not as good for urban house, but farmhouses, cottages need design ideas, too, modern horizontal wood panel will look very charming.

cembh If you lived though it once you don't want to live through it again. JMO

olldbobbi cembh, yes! And let's not forget the wonderful polyester clothes that came from that era! Eeeew!

gumby97 Is the beanbag real sheepskin or faux? Who is it made by? Looking at these pics makes me feel 13 again :)

Dana Veach Years ago...I won't say how long...when my husband was in grad school, we bought a mobile home to save on rental expenses. He asked me how I'd feel about living in it...I said, "fine...as long as it doesn't have dark wood paneling and avocado green shag carpets." Guess what it had? Sigh...we all survived.

aprilhreno Did you see that Jonathan Adler avocado green farm sink? I mean Johnnnny what were you thinking? The trend is so over: farm sink AND avocado green. Double whammy out.

woolylam Are you kidding? I love that green farm sink! Looks almost apple green though! To each his own I guess. ;)