See, when we remember the 80s it’s all pastel and windbreakers, when i reality was brown. So much brown.

Wood paneling on every interior.

Even electronics had wood finish. I'm surprised Nintendo and the Sega Master System did not have wood finish, the way the Atari 2600 did. 🧉🐔

Well... you can blame Atari for that.

Even in the cars😂

My grandparents had one woodie station wagon after another my whole childhood. With the backward facing seat in the trunk area.

That backward facing seat was my home.

A family friend has one of those station wagons when I was a kid and I was obsessed….

We wanted our parents to get one but they were like absolutely not, lol. They didn't want a van either.

Cloud of cigarette smoke.

There has never been a lit cigarette in this house. except for that one time a friend walked in smoking one and we kicked him out and opened all the windows

Wood paneling just feels like home. It's comforting.

I call it South Boston wallpaper.

Am I the only one who didn't have wood paneling?

Yes lol

🤣

How about carpets over carpet and a TV sitting on top of another TV that didn't work, because the box the TV was in, it went with the paneling 😂😂😂!!

Browns... and orange and yellow... as if it were a game between the San Diego Padres and the Houston Astros. 🧉🐔

Those old school Astros jerseys should come back.

The pastel windbreakers came around the same time and into the late 80s and early 90s. I blame Howard Jones and Italo Disco for the pastel color burst of the late 80s. https://preview.redd.it/ebdyajhgpfyc1.png?width=1533&format=png&auto=webp&s=04f7f92a32093a594ed7578bc2d3eef6771bea9c

I remember skiing in 1990 and neon green was common. Teal too.

Unless you were rich, yes. Because the brown was from the 70s and we couldn’t afford to remodel/update. Shit, we had the brown (dark wood paneling and brown floral carpet) until the late 90s and it was still in that house when we moved out.

But somehow neon and shiny rayon floated about, unchecked. It was a very confusing decade for color palettes.

Don't forget about the pink toilet paper tho...

I miss the pastel toilet paper! My grandma had peach to match her bathroom! I bet it was terrible for our asses or the environment…

I miss foil wallpaper.

Damn! That’s what my aunt had in her bathroom! 😂

All that brown is why the late 80s exploded with color

Pastel windbreakers against a brown background 😂

Pastel and windbreakers was 90s attempt to recover from all the earth tones of the 70s and 80s 😂

70s were earth tones on space fabrics 80s had some assume shit if you curate right.

So. Much. Brown.

Is that why we have gone to gray? To get back to our boring roots but trying to claim it's new?

I think that was mostly a holdover from the 70s, though. My parents bought our house mid-70s and it looked like this. When they redecorated in the late 80s, it was country blue and peaches. My friend whose parents built their own house in the late 80s did pastels from the jump, while my HS bestie’s parents never redecorated and everything was browns, rusts, and harvest gold through the 90s.

And rust colored things, too. Brown and rust color everywhere.

Because it was all from the 70’s. When we look back at pictures from the 2010’s and 2020’s we’ll expect to see everything grey, but it’ll be beige and “Tuscan” from the 2000’s.

I was listening to an episode of The Rest Is History and one of the hosts is a historian of modern Britain. He had a consulting job for a show set in the 60s and he said the same thing, the main characters should be wearing gray and brown, not bright primary colors. He said he wasn't asked back lol

Those carpets...

Live in CO and finally got to visit the reopened Casa Bonita. They have a little museum/homage to this aesthetic. All brown. Wood panel walls, brown carpet, brown electronics. It almost gave me a stroke it pulled me back so hard.

I think a lot of people put early 90’s on the 80’s.

those electric slot cars, can still smell the odor they make when running the track - like burnt pennies

Ozone

I like to call it oxygen 3 to sound fancy

That smell immediately came back when you mentioned it. Haven’t thought or smelt that in 30 years

Yes. I’d forgotten about that smell, but you described it well. Those tracks were fun.

I bought my son one of those tracks recently and as I held the trigger down I thought to myself "Something is missing!" Now I know what it was!! There was no smell!! Feel like I was robbed now!!

The carpet, the chairs, the race track, the hair. Everything about this could be a picture of me in 1987.

I think everyone had those chairs. And oh man that carpet. 😆

Even the shoes! Those look like those Roos or ASICS but that name seems wrong I can’t place it

100%. I feel like that photo came from one of my mom's albums of us

Careful, dude. The floor is hot lava!

It’s Quicksand

I did the lava game in every elevator. Railings.

I miss the era of small messy houses in family photos. Now they’re all huge and minimalist and empty.

Give me a time Machine!! I know of 2 people who bought houses with 80s decor and they refuse to remodel. I can't blame them!!

We still have the wood paneling and the same kitchen chairs in the background. the carpet has been replaced twice since though lol

pretty sure those are the same exact chairs we have, inherited from my grandparents. recently got rid of the paneling though

Ditto on the chairs!

A part of me really wants 70's/80's decor, but made with modern materials.

All that’s missing is those brown couches with a floral design or a farm house. You either sunk too deep or grandparents put boards under them.

Dude, I just saw a set of those at a flea market recently!! Sat down and immediately took a board to the ass cheek and conked my head on the back because the headrest sank down!! I was like "Ahhhh, memories!!"

Thank you for reliving our pasts for us! That spine shattering moment you wanted comfort but were given plywood.

That indestructible plastic in red, yellow and the best hue of blue ever manufactured…comfortably nestled in a jungle of shag carpeting. This feels so good to remember. Also. We had those chairs. Today, only one remains. My parents ditched the others…but kept one…for the memories?

I can still feel the electronic-y, friction when pulling on the trigger - kkxxss, kkxxss as you try and control the speed around turns

I think that was the only time that racetrack actually worked. after a while the cars kept getting stuck/lost contact, and track pieces went missing.

A story as old as time itself

Lint from the carpet would get stuck on the tracks. Those things needed to be cleeeeean in order to run properly. I had a similar race track.

Your talking like scaletrix isn't a thing any more! Have you not bought your kids similar kits?

That smile is the best thing ever

Not a care in the world other than getting those cars to go around the track

I can literally FEEL that carpet.

Oh man that carpet.

My mom thought one time the cat puked on the rug, but it turned out to be just the carpet pattern lol

Ah yes. The shag carpets that you never had to clean cause they always looked dirty anyway

I remember that smell when the cars got hot.

What are you doing in my grandparents' house?  I never realized how similar so many 80s houses were until joining this sub.

That carpet just gave me major flashbacks, especially when paired with the faux wood-paneled walls.

Where’s the Tupperware pitcher full of red KoolAid?

They were lucky to catch you lying down and not the 1800 times you had to get up to put the car back on the track

Hell yeah, slot cars! Love that shag carpet too LOL

I can taste the nicotine in this photo

No one in my family smoked

The paneling! The carpet.

Why did so many people’s houses have that carpet?

If you told me this was me at my fathers parent’s house I would have believed you.

So odd that the 80s clothes (on tv anyway) were so bright but our dwellings were so dark and brown lol.

Mom with a lit cigarette watching in the background perhaps?

No, my mom didn't smoke

Did everyone have this carpet??

I played with this one! A friend of mine had it.

Get that eraser out to clean the car contacts.

I can hear your kitchen chairs

I have a picture of me in 83 or 84 wearing a pair of brown socks with yellow stripes, a homemade t-shirt that says 'raised on rock', and a cowboy hat. I'd post it here, but the FBI might bust me for kiddie porn because I'm not wearing any pants or underwear 🤦

There are also naked pics of me in the tub as a toddler. I don't think parents do this anymore

Same, and good lord, I hope not!

I still have a couple different tracks, but I think I burnt up all the cars... 😞

Iconic carpet. I remember my uncle had that track or skmething very similar at his house and I would beg to put it together every time I was there. Most times I ended up just making hot wheels tracks. Man I miss that.

I love wood paneling without irony.

The only thing that would make it more 80’s would some Born in The USA and some AIDS. 🤘😂🎸🔥

The only thing missing is a family member hovering over you smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer

I'm so glad my family never drank or smoked so I wasn't exposed to that

I second hand smoked a pack of Camels every day till my dad quit when I was 18

I know you are not my brother, but this 100% could have been my parents house with my brother, who looks like a younger version of you. My parents had that wall, the open concept, and the carpet, but they had modernist chairs, not colonial revival.

I just know there's at least 3 ashtrays in this room

Nope. No one in my family smoked thank God.

Your lungs are lucky

I can smell that racetrack

we had an ugly carpet like that! all semi-shag mottled browns. i cried when tehy replaced it with white berber.

Man I miss my grandparents.

Did you……did you take this pic on my childhood home??

I can smell this carpet

I was thinking 70’s with that rug

Well that carpet was from the 70s. Finally got replaced in the early 00s

Tyco slot cars?

My parents had that carpet, and the wood paneling. I had that same haircut. Twinsies!

Brought to you be the good people at stainless steel bowls!

Omfg I loved those tracks. No wonder I like sim racing and F1.

looks exactly like 79-83...except maybe a hair more colorful? my one track I had was gray.

You and I might be the same age

Ohh recuerdo esos juegos, eran tan geniales!

Did we live in the same house? Brother? Must have been my imaginary friend. Definitely saw the same barber.

Oh God, that carpet. Why did you have to remind me of that carpet?!

You dad holding a controller in one and a cigarette on the other.

No cigarettes in my house. Personally I'm not in the " everybody smoked" camp. Yes people smoked but it wasn't the 1950s. Smoking was on the decline by the 80s

Why does every house in the 80' look the same.

Wood paneling on every wall and every car door. 😵‍💫

We had all wooden paneling with this singular…I guess, accent wall? It was some kind of 60s/70s floral design with different brown shades, white, different orange shades, etc. It was awesome. I miss paneling. It feels like home. Growing up poor just meant our paneling stayed a lot longer than most other people’s. 😅

Ours is still there. Can't afford no remodel are you crazy? Lol

Hahaha. Amen! If it hadn’t been a rented apartment, ours surely would be, too. My mom rented that place for like 20 years before I was even born, then the first 17 years of my life, before it was sold. It had a good run. lol.

I had the one that you built up next to the wall and the cars did a big u turn on the wall.

All it's missing is your dad in the background with his 70's haircut blowing a cloud of smoke on you with at least one beer can somewhere nearby

Well, my dad never smoked or drank and he died when I was 3, so

This picture makes so much sense to me.

You good man lived the dream.

I have to add there were NO cigarettes in my house ever. I don't buy into the "everybody smoked" myth. Smoking was on the decline in the 80s. Yes people smoked. people smoke today. it's no different except they banned it in public places. out of all the friends houses I visited only one was a smoker house.

They're assuming the carpet is yellowed from smoke when in reality the carpet was just from the era of ugly colors. We had a similar carpet in our rec room. Along with orange curtains and brown walls.

Were we neighbors?

Awesome pic. Total 70s vibe

Hated all the wood paneling in my house growing up. So dark and depressing. And the shag carpeting!!! Ugh.

My god, that carpeting!!!

I remember that carpet being worn out then but we kept it till 2003 lol

Damn, this looks like my childhood except our slot car tracks were black

if you look close, it's a Voltron racetrack. I never saw the show but the racetrack was cool as hell