I Said I'd Never Do That!

I'm a child of the 80's and in my opinion it was the best decade to grow up in. We had great music, great movies and outrageous fashion, heck I even miss my big hair (sometimes)! Here's some stuff that makes me feel old nostalgic.

This is all stuff I had back then. I actually wore those red hi-top Reeboks, I wore both of those exact Swatches together on one wrist. Okay, almost exact, I had the blue version of the pink one and it smelled of plastic blueberries (I kid you not). I had five Cabbage Patch Kids and that exact Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper. Everyone who was anyone carried an Esprit bag. I loved John Hughes movies (still do) and my mother didn't like my record of "1984" because the angel was smoking. I miss those days *sigh*.

However, the 80's gave us a whole bunch of things that should be consigned to the past. Mullets for example. Who thought cutting your hair to look like a Marine from the front and a hippy from the back was a good idea? You just look confused from the side. Kenny G, Ernest movies, acid wash, shoulder pads and tight-rolled pants, these are all things that never should have happened.  

One decorating style that was popular in the 80's was "Contrived Country" (I actually coined that term when I was in 8th grade.). Contrived Country consisted of wooden signs with cute sayings, dried flower arrangements with wired ribbon bows, "folk" painted wooden ducks or apples tied with twine and hanging from shaker peg racks, wallpaper boarders atop matching "county" wallpaper. It was all meant to look like folk art but instead it looked like a strange approximation. It was as if they were trying to recreate the country "look" when they had never been to the country, like someone decorating southwestern style in a New England Cape. It wasn't real and it was obvious.

Disclaimer: There is a difference between the "Contrived Country" style of the 80's and actual country decor. If you like to decorate with antiques and hang quilts on your walls, more power to you, may I just suggest that you use items that are actually from the country.

Part of the "Contrived Country" style were two trends that I vowed I would never do:

(I used the Papyrus font on purpose)

Mauve, usually paired with "dusty blue" as it is here, was a very popular color combination. It reminds me of beige polyester carpeting, doctor's waiting rooms and "easy listening" music. Stencils were popular too, pineapples, hearts and vines, duckies, "WELCOME" in big letters, apples etc... I had vowed that I would NEVER used the color mauve or stencils in a room again! There were just too many tacky associations.

Then I saw these:

and I thought "oooh pretty."

Suddenly I was inspired to include both stencils and mauve in the design of my kitchen! Who knew I would be eating my words because who knew stencils and mauve could be interpreted to be both pretty and modern? I'll be posting the design board for my kitchen tomorrow complete with mauve and stencils.