When I moved into my house, over twenty years ago, there was a lot of tiny floral wallpaper (and contact paper - remember that?) all over the house. I promptly wallpapered over it with a gigantic floral wallpaper, and decided that pink and blue flowered linoleum would also be a good idea (to tie it all together, of course).
A year later, I couldn't stand either of them; the floor came up, and the wallpaper was painted over. I had tried to get it off, but apparently the wallpaper was the only thing holding up the wall; when I peeled off the seventh (yes, really) layer of paper, I could see through to the bathroom on the other side. I am embarrassed to say that I glued it back, stuck on some cardboard, and called it a day.
Like a lot of people, my decorating style changed shortly after. We were all a little traumatized by the cuteness of the 80's, design quickly flip-flopped into a more formal way of decorating, and everyone fell in love with the concept of coordinating fabrics. Plaids, stripes and chintzy florals were the darlings of the design world, cherry replaced oak, and our fabrics just had to match the pre-pasted border in the kitchen.
In hindsight, it was a world that quickly wore out its welcome. Too many people followed a trend that didn't suit who they were, and we ended up with a lot of homes that looked the same; personalities were replaced with burgundy stripes, and an unused formality created rooms that struggled to be enjoyed.
Fortunately, trends change, and as we became more casual, the formal patterns still had their place, but happily shared the limelight with more modern ideas. Greedy for more, we now demand that designers give us what we want, and make it affordable.
Right now, there is no limit to what we can have, and where we can find it. We are no longer tied to a trend, we can design our homes exactly how we want, and we can still choose to have pink and blue flowered linoleum ....
Gorgeous photograph from things-i-love
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