Children’s Rooms : how to decorate them to grow with your child
Levine
1975
Submitter: I have attached copious images to truly understand how scary the designs of these rooms are. Creepy dolls galore.
Holly: Wow, those are some extremely overstimulating designs for sleeping children!
Mary: Now I am going to have nightmares. Just no.
No wonder there were so many movies about scary kids in the 70s.
I watch a lot of those home renovation shows on HGTV and my parents redecorated their home in the 70s (still decorated that way BTW). What is it with all the wallpaper? Was there no paint in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s? Or did people need the print on the walls to help with the acid trips???LOL 🙂
I was scrolling along, thinking, “Hmm, the light green strawberry one isn’t TOO bad, but the red and black one is obnoxious…HOLY MOLY WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE WALL?” Thanks for the nightmares.
The turtles on the nursery wall are kinda cute. But the frog-thing in the “pink elephants” room and the distorted human figures in the picture after that . . . nightmarish!
Having grown up in the 70’s, I can safely say that NOBODY who gave a tinker’s damn about their kids ever wasted their money on layouts like this.
No wonder Dad thought he was drunk!
Yikes! Is it possible that some of these are the “before” pictures LOL? Also, in the cover photo, is that thing with the metal curlicues an actual crib?! Even for 1975 that looks extremely hazardous. Well, hazardousness is timeless, of course, but even in 1975 wouldn’t people have realized the danger of that design? Bumper pads are NOT sufficient protection.
This book should come with a sensory overload warning label. I guess white space was not valued – not even on the ceiling. My favorite is the red and purple Future Vegas Showgirl themed room.
Wow, WHAT is with the terrifying Gorey-esque black dolls in the room that seems to be a stripy museum? My eyes hurt from all the color and pattern…
This should be called “Children’s Rooms: How to Decorate them so Your Child Will Leave on His 18th Birthday.” Yiikes! I’m having trouble picking an un-favorite; I think I dislike all of these almost equally. 🙂
My eyes!
They’re so BUSY. I feel claustrophobic just looking at a lot of them. Those cowboy-and-indian hooked rugs in the bottom photo take the cake, though. So much WTFery. That red room with the light bulbs in the ceiling looks like a dressing room for Vegas showgirls, too. These are the rooms that ended up on those remodeling shows on HGTV, I tells ya.
Aw, I see a lot of familiar things: LOVE design by Robert Indiana, latch-hook rugs, Snoopy doll, Raggedy Ann and Andy, those lions on the wall. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Don’t forget the Snoopy, Come Home! pennant! My mom had a pennant like that one (the quote was different, though: “I’ve got to start acting more sensible…tomorrow!”), and at one point when I was little, I had it in my room!
Found your site a few days ago and I love it. I just “retired” from volunteering at a library book sale after nine years. Some of these books were at my sale. I especially remember the one about cutting hair.
Looking forward to more treasures —
Wow, that room with the zillion lightbulbs looks so Studio 54. 😛 That and I wouldn’t want to change all those bulbs when they inevitably burn out.
The
pinkred room and the green room in the first scan are the least offensive here, but they’re still going to look bad once someone, you know, actually uses the room. There’s a reason you usually see elaborate settings like these only in furniture stores, Better Homes & Gardens, and TV shows—they’re hard to keep clean.That Indian looks far too happy at being held up by the road agent.
You think these pictures are scary?
You should see the retirement homes these kids eventually chose for their parents.
Having been a small child in the 1970s, I am now very glad that my mother had simple, classic, boring tastes and never fancied herself trendy or creative.
I like the pink flowery one (though pink isn’t my style) and I’m totally liking the leaf green themed one. The red one with all the light bulbs? HUH?! Let’s not forget the hooked rug cowboy with his guns and the matching Indian/Native American!
Shag carpeting. Shag carpeting everywhere.
Bonus points if your curtains and dust ruffle print EXACTLY MATCH the pattern of your wallpaper…
Lord, it looks like someone dynamited the Sherman Williams paint company in these rooms..
I just noticed that there’s an American Indian beadwork book in the pic with the stripy-wall headboard and the voodoo dolls on the wall. I think we still have that book in the collection! (And it stays–we have a pretty big calling for that sort of thing. Plus, it’s small).
Now–the room with the orangy plaid bed: the bed looks a bit small; like it’s the same size as that creepy doll on the lounge chair thing. But I have no doubts that the creepy doll moves around the room when you aren’t looking…
These are about as bad – in the opposite direction – as the modern very-white-everywhere trend, where everything is shades of white, with a little pale white for contrast.
But any room where *everything* matches perfectly is a horror to behold in my eyes.
A place, and especially a child’s room, should look lived in and grown into and everchanging as the child grows and changes.
The eyes of a small child prefers primary colours anyway, so why not make the room into what is best for the child, and bollocks to fashion and trends! (and yes, I have a baby daughter and have thought about room decor for far too long)
No one has said anything about the doll seated in the human chair in the second to last pic. What the what? What level of hell do you buy these kind of room accessories?
…MoThErFuDgE.