Great news: my 4-year-old son is really, really into G.I. Joe.
Now, it might have something to do with the fact that I named him “Duke” after the leader of the Joes, and it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve scattered vintage G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles all around the house, but in any event, he’s super into the Joe’s.
What a kid, honestly. When I put him to bed at night, I ask him, “Do you want to read some books?” but he answers, “No, I want to look at pictures of G.I. Joe on your phone.”
He’s already telling me he’s going to ask Santa for some vintage figures for Christmas this year, which really excited me.
My daughter, however, is turning eight this fall and is starting to wise up. When she heard this, she asked, “I thought Santa makes toys. How could get Dukey toys from the 1980’s?”
Damn. She caught me there.
So I did what any parent does best: I lied.
I told her that Santa has a warehouse of toys that were made but never delivered to children and that he could see if there are any 1980’s G.I. Joe figures or vehicles left over.
She bought it.
To distract her from further thought, however, I went into my online photo archive and said, “Hey, do you want to see a photo of when I got the G.I. Joe command centre for Christmas of 1989?”
Then I showed the kids this:
It’s funny because when you see people today looking down at their hands like my dad and sister are doing, you assume they’re on their cell phones. But there were no cell phones back then. Ah, yes, it was a better time…
As glorious as that G.I. Joe Command Centre is, my daughter looked past it.
Amazingly, she asked, “Daddy, did you live in a log cabin?”
I was bewildered.
Then I noticed the walls of our basement rec room at 128 Parkhurst Boulevard and remembered that this was all the rage back in the 1980’s.
Faux logs, it would seem. Wood panels to make your basement look like…..what…..a ski chalet?
Perhaps another photo of the basement, just to drive home the point:
Yeah, that’s definitely 80’s for ya. Gramma Fleming looks to be hacking a dart, although I honestly can’t remember anybody ever smoking inside.
Side note: those are Beta-Max cassettes you see on the wall.
In any event, I showed this photo to my daughter as well and she still thought that our home was made of pine logs.
Keep in mind, my daughter has never seen anything but drywall in her life! I think a lot of kids today are in the same boat.
But here’s where today’s blog theme comes into play.
Eventually, my daughter began to ask to see other photos of our childhood home because she was so interested in the styles and trends from when I was a kid.
This got me thinking about all the fads we’ve seen over the years and all the styles that have come and gone.
I’ve often mused that one day in the future, our children (our grandchildren…) will be aghast that back in the early-2000’s, we had steel kitchen appliances! Although, this fad has lasted almost two decades, so maybe it’s here to stay.
So I’d like to share with you what I shared with my kids last week and perhaps we can all reminisce.
Younger folks: tell me just how bad you think these are.
Older folks: I want to hear all your stories.
Here’s what my kids and I looked at the other night…
Wood Paneling
If you’re a child of 1970’s or 1980’s, you can picture this in your mind’s eye.
In fact, some of your parents who never renovated their homes may still have this in their homes today:
How many friends of yours had this in their basement?
How many Grade-8 parties did you slow dance to in a room that looked like this:
Unlike some of the other trends that return years later, I don’t see any reason why this one will make a comeback.
Unless we’re talking fake logs and you’ve got a real obsession with ski chalets…
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Leopard Print Rugs
I’m fairly certain that my grandfather’s house had a carpet pattern like this:
Tell me there’s another name for this. Please. It can’t seriously be intended to resemble an animal, can it?
The amazing part about this photo above is that it has other elements of fads I have or will mention today…
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Massive Brick Fireplaces
This is something else that I remember from my grandfather’s house as a child. In my mind’s eye, the fireplace took up the entire room!
Maybe something like this…
That has a bit of a “Brady Bunch” feel to it, does it not?
But my grandfather’s fireplace wasn’t on the ground like the photo above. I remember it being elevated a few feet off the ground.
More like this, perhaps:
It was a sort of combination of the two above, but my goodness did it take up a lot of space!
Then again, I was probably only 10-years-old the last time I was there, and our childhood memories have a way of exaggerating things for us, but you can be certain that in the 1960’s and 1970’s, these massive fireplaces were all the rage! So those of us who grew up in the 1980’s
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Brown Floral Couch Patterns
Images like this from childhood are seared into my brain.
Considering that most couches in 2024 are a solid colour and/or pattern, it’s one thing to imagine flowers adorning every square inch of a couch, but it’s another thing entirely to imagine brown flowers.
And isn’t the design above messing with your eyes a little?
I’m seeing a man riding a horse. Are you? Seriously – look closely.
And how about this one below – tell me that’s a barn in the background, right?
I love that this couch also happens to be in front of a wood-paneled wall…
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Glass Block Windows
We still see this all the time in Toronto houses in 2024, but these are relics from the 1980’s and maybe 1990’s:
I can’t tell you how many glass block windows I saw in houses growing up.
Does anybody use these in interior design today?
Maybe. But This feels a bit more tropical to me and I might expect to see this in Florida or when I’m vacationing in the islands.
Could you see this in a 2024-build in, say, the Beaches?
Again, I think it’s a maybe. We seemed to have more than our fair share of glass block windows in the 1980’s.
Then again…
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Glass Block Stairs
If I failed to make an impact with the glass block stairs, how about glass block railings?
Can you remember a house like this?
Any chance you lived in one?
What in the WORLD were people thinking back then?
Sorry, but when and where did this look good?
Like I said: I’m not an interior designer, but this is a fad that I hope never comes back.
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Red & White Checkerboard Floor Tiles
Surely you or a friend of yours had a kitchen floor like this in the 1980’s:
We’ve all seen black-and-white checkerboard floors before, and you could probably find an updated style of that flooring in the foyer of an eclectic Rosedale house today.
But what about red-and-white?
If your friend or family member had a kitchen in their basement back in the day, I’m willing to bet the floor was this pattern.
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Pattens Everywhere!
Speaking of patterns, another fad back in the day was patterns on just about every piece of decor.
Pillows, carpets, couches, curtains, you name it.
And while this photo might make you think 1970’s, I saw a lot of this growing up…
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Carpeted Bathroom Floors
My grandmother had carpet on her bathroom floors.
It made me nervous, for some reason.
Then again, she had carpet on the toilet lid, so maybe I was just constantly in a state of shock.
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That’s about all we covered the other night, and while it might seem like a lot, my kids still wanted more.
They always do though, right?
It’s any wonder they got to sleep before 10pm, but I digress…
Which of these do you remember?
And what else stands out in your mind from the time you were growing up?
I’d love to know!
And on that note, have a wonderful long weekend, everybody! See you back here on Tuesday with a look ahead at the fall real estate market.
Francesca
at 8:19 am
I turned 50 this year so I remember most of these styles and trends from the 70s and 80s. The house we lived in from 1978-1985 was built brand new and had the huge brick fireplace not only in the living room but also in my parents master bedroom. Something I remember vividly from that house and that area was the sunken living room trend, the open staircases where my baby sister when she was a toddler almost fell through and the ugly brown kitchen cabinets and linoleum tiles! The builder wanted to put carpet in the bathroom and my parents refused although they accepted carpet everywhere else. I remember the glass panels everywhere in the 80s, homes, malls, offices. Let’s not forget the hideous panelled lights in the kitchen back then, it was blinding how strong they were! My in laws had one of those ugly floral patterned sofas even in the early 2000s, a relic from the past but at least the sofa was white not brown! Another memory I have of my childhood was having two kitchens with those round built in benches that surrounded the kitchen table. Another memory of those times were how many houses had wet bars in their wood panelled basements! My parents actually bought a house in 1998 built in 1979 that had a wet bar in the basement and it was one of the few things they updated but kept when renovating. I threw a lot of parties down there in my 20s with my friends!
Different David
at 9:33 am
Remember the plastic protectors on their couches (chesterfields?). My grandmother did, and so did Gus and Maria Portokalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone since then?
Andrew
at 12:06 pm
I was just about to mention plastic on the chesterfield!
Remember the sound it made when you sat on it, or shifted your weight around? It was like trying to climb onto a plastic water float at the cottage.
I asked my grandmother why we had to sit on plastic and she said that if we spilled grape juice on the couch, we would be happy it was there!
KatLyn
at 1:48 pm
Your article reminded me of some other blasts from the past:
-ash trays and lighters everywhere
-wet bar in wood paneled basement
-flocked wallpaper
-vinyl flooring and wall-to-wall broadloom, guaranteed to “ugly out” long before they wore out
-pedestal sinks in bathrooms
-and the grossest thing, that little rug around the base of the toilet!
Your_Favorite_Tenant
at 2:26 pm
I definitely had a relative who had not only the brown floral couch, but matching love seat and chairs. It was a look!
I never saw the glass brick walls in the 80s, but maybe it was a big city thing? I did recently see a hard loft that I think was converted in the early aughts that had a glass brick wall separating the bathroom from the hall. My boyfriend and I took turns standing inside to see how much we could actually see. And while it was distorted, I felt enough could been seen to make it a hard no on the hard loft!
Anwar
at 2:58 pm
I grew up in the suburbs so my recollection of 80’s houses are a downright stupid amount of levels in a house, all these stairs and half-levels. You call these back splits or side splits on MLS, I think. But imagine walking inside and there’s six stairs going up and six stairs going down, but both of the floors you get two are half-floor, both with other staircases.
David, do you think you could do a blog on these layouts? A floor plan wouldn’t help though as you would need a 3D tour to show the true layout.
Ed
at 5:27 pm
I always laugh when David talks about sidesplits and backsplits, it is just amazing a real estate professional doesn’t get it.
I’ll give an example how it makes sense lets say your living, dining and kitchen are at one level maybe 5 or 6 feet above ground level, go half a level down and you could have a office, bathroom and a family room which would have access to the yard at ground level.
Side splits were common on wide lots back when land was more plentiful.
DIGGITY’S MOM
at 10:24 am
I had the same thought as your daughter. Wow, David grew up in a log cabin. Who knew?
Here’s what I remember from 80s home design:
Melamine kitchen counters (often green but my parents opted for the “faux butcher’s block” style).
Harvest gold or avocado green appliances (still there from the 70s).
Backsplash tiles with random vegetables on them.
Corning ware (worth a fortune today, still there from the 60s).
Macramé hanging planters.
Tie-back curtains (with matching valances).
Vertical blinds.
Crochet throws (the more brown, the better).
Wall-to-wall deep pile carpeting.
Swag lamps on chains.
Laura Ashley floral wallpaper.
Novelty phones (my girlfriend had a Mickey Mouse phone, I was so jealous!)
Here’s wishing everyone a great Labour Day weekend! I look forward to more real estate adventures with David in the fall.
DAF
at 7:47 pm
Father was never involved in interior design decisions. In fact, my Mother would wait until Fall when he would go moose-hunting with “the men” to bring in the designers to work furiously for a week and then disappear. My Father never noticed that the walls had changed colour or that the chesterfield (love that word) and wingback chairs had been reupholstered in a floral pattern, until many months later when he would casually say “I don’t remember that chair being like that before”. We (4 kids) were trained to say “it’s always been like that, Dad.” Mother went ALL OUT in the bathroom! Not only the fluffy rug around the base of the toilet…there was the matching pinkie rose covering on the tank and the lid and the seat! And the cardboard kleenex box was held within a matching coloured heavier box, like the kleenex had its own “home”. That was my life growing up in Don Mills in the 60s.
hoob
at 10:37 am
Glass block is more a 90s thing IIRC.
Looking forward to when we will all be looking back in horror at the legacy of ship-lap reclaimed wood stone-veneer weekend project messes infecting a good portion of the housing supply.
Ace Goodheart
at 2:54 pm
We had one of those massive stone/brick fireplaces in our living room back when I was a kid. It took up the entire west wall of a room that spanned from the front to the back of the house. It was made of stone.
In front of it was a small wood stove. That was the “fireplace”.
This thing was two stories high. It reached floor to ceiling in the room, which had a cathedral ceiling.
When I was a teenager, the challenge was to climb it. It could be ascended from either the north or south sides, but the north side was easier as there was more of a slope. The south side was much steeper. I still remember successfully swatting the ceiling with my hand after managing to climb up this thing. I could climb both the north and south faces.
When they came up with rock wall climbing as a sport, I always wondered if it had been inspired by teens like us, climbing these massive indoor fireplaces. Maybe?