Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s

I picked this up after a friend's review, not because I have any great interest in interior design, but because I was sort of hoping to see an echo of my parents' kitchen when we first moved in, a hideous display of avocado green--the appliances to the carpet--and dark brown wood accents on cabinets and paneling.
But Interior Descecrations is a level above the common 1970s ranch house. It contains pictures from designer-level showrooms and appropriately snarky commentary alongside. Apparently the book's genesis sprung from a website devoted to the visual atrocities of the period.

Amusing, to be sure, but these are hardly the more common visual manifestations that so wounded the senses. Although I do seem to remember a friend's kitchen show more that resembled this:



Honestly, who was the brain trust that convinced people to carpet their kitchens?!? Did they not have children in the 70s?

Commentary is meant only to amuse, not inform, with witty observations:

"To understand the full visual horror of this era, you have to visualize a man in plaid pants sitting on the sofa. Or any patterned pants, for that matter: this was a sofa designed to clash with humans. Nude people would clash with this sofa. Albino nude people would clash with this sofa. The Invisible Man would clash with this sofa. It is one of those perfectly rare pieces of furniture that clashes with itself. Just looking at it makes you feel as if you've bounced down the stairs in a box of cymbals."

"Fighting centipedes? A close-up of one's intestinal lining Difficult to say. But you can be sure the designer chose this scheme because it 'drew the eye upward.' Of course, one could say the same thing about the Hindenburg disaster."

"Here we have a mix of old green crap, new green crap and some stunning green transitional crap, all of which serve to give this room the exhausted, mealy flavor of overcooked vegetables."

That's the one!

These are horrifying photos with commentary worth of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is a combination guaranteed to amuse--in small doses, as it will surely overwhelm in larger ones--much like these rooms.



My eyes!

As a bonus for those who want to consider reading, check out one of Lileks' pages. It's typical of the book commentary. And a seriously hideous room.
http://lileks.com/institute/interiors/71book/5.html show less

This book is gold.

As a refugee of the 70's myself, complete with lingering nervous ticks in the presence of goldenrod kitchen appliances, geometric wallpaper and shag rugs, I can't recommend this book highly enough. As the author says, it's important to learn from history so we don't repeat it.

The spreads are, for the most part, so god-awful you just have to laugh. If they're too painful to laugh at, the author's writing will numb the pain: he holds nothing back and just about all his commentary had me howling out loud.

Buy or borrow this book - even if you didn't live through the 70's, it's a cautionary tale about what happens when you try too hard to be cool and have more money than sense. If nothing else, you'll laugh.


[PopSugar show more 2015 Challenge: A Funny Book] show less

All too familiar! In 1978 I moved into a house that had been decorated according to the aesthetic which Lilek hilariously demolishes in this book. It had metallic greeny-silver wallpaper - with flocking! -, huge orange-and-brown geometric wallpaper (different patterns for different rooms) and a tiny room wallpapered past the point of claustrophobia with a metallic-shocking-pink-fire-engine-red pattern. It took many hours to scrape it all off the walls. The scary thing is, after reading this book, it suddenly occurs to me that they may have done all that right before selling to make the house more attractive. The scarier thing is that earlier in the decade I probably admired some of this stuff, although in the case of seventies design it show more was difficult to distinguish aesthetic attraction from horrified fascination. Lilek's wicked comments literally are laugh-out-loud funny, so be warned before trying to read the book in public. show less

This was so funny! It's the same guy who gave us "The Gallery of Regrettable Food". I loved looking at these pictures. It's a bit embarrassing, but some of these pictures actually gave me a wave of nostalgia. Some were truly horrible. I suppose I was lucky that my mom despised shag carpeting as I was a child of the 70's. Actually, I don't think I knew anyone with shag carpeting but I sure do remember it from - somewhere? Most people I knew didn't have the money to hire a top 70's decorator so we made do with a mish mash from the 50's, 60's, and 70's so that tempered the horror just a bit. And by the time the 80's came around, we finally did get the harvest gold and avocado appliances. A bit late, but in the 70's we were still dealing show more with pink, black, and copper appliances from the days of yore.

Some funny quotes from this book (too bad you can't see the pictures):

"If you look at this room long enough, you can make up your own Love, American Style plots." The sad thing is I started singing the theme song while looking at this room.

And the comment on one room with lots of brown leather couches (and carpeting, and walls) - "You just know there's a De Lorean in the garage. And a pound of blow in the closet."

And to describe one girl's bedroom in various hues of brown and orange: "Is your little girl a cheerful, happy, bubbly little bundle of love and delight? This'll cure her. It's the Downer Browner room, specially designed to grind the brightest soul into a thin gruel of granola-hued joylessness."

Makes me glad I escaped the 70's with a pink and a blue room. Whew. show less

Funny, in a truly awful way. I remember some of these design elements in the house where I grew up, although I don't think my mother went overboard quite to this extent. (I do remember her painting the walls fo the staircase red, and adding a big white arrow pointing down. But that was the extent of it.) Author James Lileks has wry, witty manner of describing the Era of Excess.

I was laughing so hard I had to keep wiping the tears from my eyes to see the page. Although tear-induced blur did enhance some of the horrid 70's design. But it is the commentary more than the photos that make this worth reading. Now I want to go find more of his books.

I think he's a little too sincerely negative about disliking this stuff - back before there was a book, he was the one that got me started collecting old design books from the 70s with his witty commentary on his website. Somewhere along the line he got mean about it. I give the book 4 stars for the awesome pictures!