Hideous things you don't see in houses anymore

Aishae

My granny still has a lot of this stuff but it suits her. No coloured bathroom though we had lilac in our house till I was 12 (wasn't a bad colour but I wasn't a fan of the sh"t brown themed bathrooms)

Cicero

Garages on semi-detatched houses

Toto Wolfcastle

Brick fireplaces.

Those awful couches with the wooden arm rests.

In the 90s everything had to match, so every bedroom in our house had matching curtains, bed clothes, wallpaper borders and those upside down cone light shades. Marks and Spencers were great for that.

filthymcnasty

Sound Bite wrote: »

those sticky fly tapes

they were disgusting, hope they have been banned.



Those brown wooden box radios.

Ranges i.e http://inishindie.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-cooker.html

Central heating that never worked properly.

4leto

Sacred heart pictures and other such religious iconography, my parents house was like a church.

phasers

Shag carpeting

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Spiky plaster ceilings which would burst balloons.

some random drunk

Does anyone remember those glass bowl things from the 80's with exotic houseplants inside?

CapriSunFun

filthymcnasty wrote: »

Sound Bite wrote: »

those sticky fly tapes

they were disgusting, hope they have been

Nope, we recently bought them. In tesco I think. Still disgusting as ever.

Semele

When I was a kid in the 80's my entire house seemed to be decorated in shades of brown and burnt orange, except for the bathroom which boasted a yellow bathroom suite against a background of green tiles with orange flowers:eek:

Then the 90's arrived and we got rid of the (embossed) wallpaper in favour of Changing Rooms style paint effects. Not a single wall escaped without stencilling, stamping or rag-rolling. The living room even had a brown ceiling and cream walls, just to be a bit subversive and "modern". Being in that room felt like being buried alive. Shudder!

Flush door panels, my first house was "modernised" by the previous owner who decided to put sheets of hardboard over the doors to make them look modern (1980s), all it did was weaken the hinges! :mad:

achtungbarry

A clothes dryer that we were never allowed to use.

Blondini

An abundance of really really badly painted gloss wordwork done by your Da.

You know the sort : half the silver door handle covered in paint, carpet hairs included in the paint finish on the 3 inch skirtings.

Masking tape and sandpaper were not an option!

Then the manky brushes left in a jamjar of white spirits for 15 years.

Good times.

ricero

a glass press full of mad ornaments and china plates and all that crap. the grannies loved it

Brandog

Fred and Rose West

senorwipesalot

Priests

Firetrap

Great thread. I'm getting flashbacks :eek:

• Wood-effect formica furniture, especially in bedrooms

• A glass case for displaying the good crockery, Waterford crystal and tat that people had brought back from Spain

• Ranges in kitchens. Not the fancy Stanley type ones that people have nowadays but the lower, old-fashioned ones that had a bar at the front and would fall off if you leaned against it

kynzvart

Fondu sets, and net curtains hate them.

x_Ellie_x

Holy water font in hallway, usually near the front door. Used to see those things a lot in old people's houses.

Conor Bourke

chatterpillar wrote: »

Dado rails.

The parlour, with all the "nice" stuff in it, only to be used when the priest called, or to lay someone out.

Going back a bit here, but ... Having the toilet in a hut in the back garden (I have relations who have one of these, they also have a newer one in the house but the old one is very much still in use!)

A bar of actual soap in the bathroom, as opposed to handwash ... Seriously, when do you see that anymore?!

Stacks of annuals (remember those?!)

Porcelein dolls. So creepy!

Stuffed pheasants, foxes, etc.

I can't believe it took 126 posts to mention these, it was the very first thing I though of!

Actually Chatterpillar- am I imagining it or can you tell me was there a stuffed fox on a nature table in one of the classrooms in our National School?

Firetrap

Brightly coloured kitchen presses with lethal metal finger-rails on the bottom. Perfect for bumping your head against and gouging out lumps of your skull.

Wertz

I tend to be in an awful lot of houses through my work (cat burglar) and I can tell you that the aspirations of many in this thread are in the minority.
Plenty of lino, wallpaper, coloured toilets (green puke shade) bidets, net curtains and religious pictures furnishing the houses of Ireland...and that included Dublin before someone makes a bogger remark.
Not everyone's into the light and space, ikea minilimalist wankery that has pervaded here in the past decade...

ItsAWindUp

Them big gas heaters.

Spread

Poutbutton wrote: »

those 3 flying ducks are fetching money at auction these days, don't be too quick to discard them if you find them in your parents attic...depending on where they were manufactured some of them are antiques and valued by certain collectors. Same with the Austrian carvings by Hummel...cash in your attic!

We had a trio of these in our attic at some stage. Just checked *wiping cobwebs from hair* and the birds have flown

later12

Not really inside the house, but outside, those horrible monkey puzzle trees.

Also lots of people had things like horses, owls or dogs on the piers of their entrances. They're ok if you're actively involved in breeding these animals, but if you own a bungalow on the outskirts of a midlands town

Lots of Irish people in the 70s & 80s made their first trips to the Costa del Sol and when they came back they, bizarrely, tried to incorporate a Mexican/ Hispanic look into their homes.
To this day you will find retro bungalows with both internal and external archways, terracotta tiles, as well as, of course, the comuplsory Costa del Sol fridge magnets and ashtrays.

some random drunk

some random drunk wrote: »

Does anyone remember those glass bowl things from the 80's with exotic houseplants inside?

Just remembered they were called terraniums!

They were usually round like this:

http://www.google.co.th/imgres?q=80%27s+terrarium&hl=en&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=3ucSCjsW_cwLNM:&imgrefurl=http://sprouthomechicago.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html&docid=I6SN0Q_Sb0TP4M&w=480&h=326&ei=MmlrTsSlD4f0mAXE8NwL&zoom=1&biw=1366&bih=553

Though we had a hanging hexagonal one like this in our sitting room:

http://www.google.co.th/imgres?q=80%27s+terrarium&hl=en&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=bCyCyuEHj-qBCM:&imgrefurl=http://changeofsceneries.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html&docid=xBqFWkJUH2wdeM&w=313&h=400&ei=MmlrTsSlD4f0mAXE8NwL&zoom=1&biw=1366&bih=553

Firetrap

Not to mention pampas grass. Apparently that was what swingers used to use to signal that they were...er... swinging :eek: My grandparents must have been racy folk and I never knew it.

sunnysoutheast

cofy wrote: »

I remember these, my brother used me as a remote control - he was bigger than me.

We had a 10-foot length of plastic trunking with a blunt pencil taped to the end to change the channel without moving off the sofa. Problem is that the end of it would be going up and down like a wingtip in turbulence so it was touch-and-go what channel, if any, you ended up "selecting". Radio Rentals must have wondered why their TVs always came back scratched with filthy buttons.

I went round to the house of a friend of my dad's last year, and I'd swear it hadn't changed one iota since I was last in there as a child in the 1970s. Sad to think that most of the stuff will go into a skip when he dies.

You don't see many Baxi Bermuda water heaters anymore, I assume they've been banned under an arms treaty or something.

SSE

booboo88

Saila wrote: »

take them down and I guarantee it will be MUCH brighter on a dull and overcast day

And everyone one and anyone can see in? That said, my parents have venetian blinds.

Blondini wrote: »

An abundance of really really badly painted gloss wordwork done by your Da.

You know the sort : half the silver door handle covered in paint, carpet hairs included in the paint finish on the 3 inch skirtings.

Masking tape and sandpaper were not an option!

Then the manky brushes left in a jamjar of white spirits for 15 years.

Good times.

my dad is a diy genius, all decorating ever done in my house was done by him but at one stage we did have avocado green bath suite, which a couple of years ago they have painted white, and then they just took the bath out all together, but white is a disater of a colour in a bathroom

misterdeeds

Oh the memories are flooding back!!
I remember when we had to put 50p into the telly (to watch glenroe)
and the brush in a holder in the hallway to brush your coat before you went out
the kettle that did not switch itself off
The kitchen clock which was plugged in
And not forgetting the top loader v c r

zyxwvu

The colours brown, yellow and pink! Okay so I know that's from the 70's and I wasn't around, but still!

Yahew

Chin up, Boards. If we ever get nostalgic about this stuff we can watch modern Irish comedy set in 2011 , like Mrs Browns boys.

mikom

Old fads replaced by new fads TBH.
I actually have quite a few of the items mentioned in my house.
Some sentimental, some still useful.
The one thing I don't have is a whopping great mortgage or a weekly drip-drip of rent payments.
Still, you can't have everything..........

tempura

It will all be back you know, give it a few years and everyone will be ripping up their pretend wooden floors and pulling down the matching wooden blinds. Swirly patterned carpets will be everywhere, along with net curtains and doillies hanging over the back of your couches ( not leather ones ) nice comfy ones, again with huge patterns.

This time round though, everyone will be paying huge prices for this Retro look, Ikea will be the front runnner id say, mark my words , it will happen.

Then there will be a thread about how everyone used to think wooden floors were the bees knees etc.

I for one can't wait !

Life used to be so cosy back then, i hate all this minimalist **** !

4leto

Books

Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

those stupid jesus / mary pictures old people had on their wall.

pink/green fibreglass bathrooms

stuffed pheasents

bakeolite house phones

glass in the door that looks like a bunch of yellow wine bottle bottoms stuck together

I was in complete agreement until I went 'aw' at the last one - still have them in my house!

meercat

anyone remember the mantelpiece light with the deer silhoutte

looky loo

Great thread, brought back some memories...

The saturday cleaning of the china cabinet....pain in the ..., the getting high on brasso, the making sure the child of prague was facing the right way or lord have mercy on us, the net curtains that had to be washed on a monday, in a great big washing machine with a ringer on the top, this was before the twin tub came in...that was welcomed as a marvel of science at the time btw.

And the worse one was the big spoon of cod liver oil taken before you headed to school.

The Big Red Button

Alaskimo-cake wrote: »

Actually Chatterpillar- am I imagining it or can you tell me was there a stuffed fox on a nature table in one of the classrooms in our National School?

Yup - Mr Mongan's room, I think it was. Bit of a creepy thing to have in a classroom, now that I think about it!

Firetrap

Firetrap wrote: »

Not to mention pampas grass. Apparently that was what swingers used to use to signal that they were...er... swinging :eek: My grandparents must have been racy folk and I never knew it.

No it's the box of OMO (Old Man Out!) in the kitchen window.

spurious

Plastic carpet protectors.
Plastic covers on good suites.

Super Ser heaters that sucked the oxygen from the room and made everyone drowsy.

Very convincing fire-effect heaters.

3-in-1 crap stereo units that put clunky tape recorder, HUGE turntable and 2 band radio (3 or even 4 if you were posh) into a 'tasteful' piece of furniture.

charlemont

Trócaire boxes

Owen

Those coffee mugs every house had. The brown ones with the orange and white stripes. Chip pans - or in other words just a pot full of boiling oil with a glorified sieve inside, so bad they had to put ads on TV telling people how to put our the fires. And ionisers - nearly every house I knew had an ioniser plugged in supposedly doing something to the air in the room. Never knew what that was, but it was always cool to put your fingers close to the prongs and watch the electricity arc to your fingertip.

Dyr

starbelgrade wrote: »

Where are you posting from?

The 1980s?

I've moved into a house that was owned by a little owl fella previously. Its awesome.. brown pattern lino, net curtains, that weird fake tile stuff on the ceiling from the 1970s, wall paper with that stone relief effect, interior doors with glass panels.

I was just disappointed there was no sacred heart or tall sail ship pictures

merengueca

Dancing coke cans.

Brick effect wallpaper (why??!?)

3 piece suites with wooden arms - most uncomfortable things ever.

Stained Class

Fireplace in every room.

Chamber pots.

Ashtrays.

Washstands.

Record player with a stack of LPs beside it.

xzanti

Copper fireside brush sets.. with the big holder and you had a poker, brush and a little shuvel type thingy..

Big sheep skin rugs you'd buy from the Butchers :eek:

So kitsch

hbert

sinks in bedrooms...

Monty Burnz

My mother in law. God rest her.

charlemont

hbert wrote: »

sinks in bedrooms...

Doubles as a toilet too so very handy if your bursting at 4am and its too cold to go all the way down the hall to the bathroom.

Dermighty

starbelgrade wrote: »

Where are you posting from?

The 1980s?

The filming set of the Commitments :P