Great news: my 4-year-old son is really, really into G.I. Joe.
Now, it might have something to do with the fact that I named him “Duke” after the leader of the Joes, and it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve scattered vintage G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles all around the house, but in any event, he’s super into the Joe’s.
What a kid, honestly. When I put him to bed at night, I ask him, “Do you want to read some books?” but he answers, “No, I want to look at pictures of G.I. Joe on your phone.”
He’s already telling me he’s going to ask Santa for some vintage figures for Christmas this year, which really excited me.
My daughter, however, is turning eight this fall and is starting to wise up. When she heard this, she asked, “I thought Santa makes toys. How could get Dukey toys from the 1980’s?”
Damn. She caught me there.
So I did what any parent does best: I lied.
I told her that Santa has a warehouse of toys that were made but never delivered to children and that he could see if there are any 1980’s G.I. Joe figures or vehicles left over.
She bought it.
To distract her from further thought, however, I went into my online photo archive and said, “Hey, do you want to see a photo of when I got the G.I. Joe command centre for Christmas of 1989?”
Then I showed the kids this:
It’s funny because when you see people today looking down at their hands like my dad and sister are doing, you assume they’re on their cell phones. But there were no cell phones back then. Ah, yes, it was a better time…
As glorious as that G.I. Joe Command Centre is, my daughter looked past it.
Amazingly, she asked, “Daddy, did you live in a log cabin?”
I was bewildered.
Then I noticed the walls of our basement rec room at 128 Parkhurst Boulevard and remembered that this was all the rage back in the 1980’s.
Faux logs, it would seem. Wood panels to make your basement look like…..what…..a ski chalet?
Perhaps another photo of the basement, just to drive home the point:
Yeah, that’s definitely 80’s for ya. Gramma Fleming looks to be hacking a dart, although I honestly can’t remember anybody ever smoking inside.
Side note: those are Beta-Max cassettes you see on the wall.
In any event, I showed this photo to my daughter as well and she still thought that our home was made of pine logs.
Keep in mind, my daughter has never seen anything but drywall in her life! I think a lot of kids today are in the same boat.
But here’s where today’s blog theme comes into play.
Eventually, my daughter began to ask to see other photos of our childhood home because she was so interested in the styles and trends from when I was a kid.
This got me thinking about all the fads we’ve seen over the years and all the styles that have come and gone.
I’ve often mused that one day in the future, our children (our grandchildren…) will be aghast that back in the early-2000’s, we had steel kitchen appliances! Although, this fad has lasted almost two decades, so maybe it’s here to stay.
So I’d like to share with you what I shared with my kids last week and perhaps we can all reminisce.
Younger folks: tell me just how bad you think these are.
Older folks: I want to hear all your stories.
Here’s what my kids and I looked at the other night…
Wood Paneling
If you’re a child of 1970’s or 1980’s, you can picture this in your mind’s eye.
In fact, some of your parents who never renovated their homes may still have this in their homes today:
How many friends of yours had this in their basement?
How many Grade-8 parties did you slow dance to in a room that looked like this:
Unlike some of the other trends that return years later, I don’t see any reason why this one will make a comeback.
Unless we’re talking fake logs and you’ve got a real obsession with ski chalets…
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Leopard Print Rugs
I’m fairly certain that my grandfather’s house had a carpet pattern like this:
Tell me there’s another name for this. Please. It can’t seriously be intended to resemble an animal, can it?
The amazing part about this photo above is that it has other elements of fads I have or will mention today…
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Massive Brick Fireplaces
This is something else that I remember from my grandfather’s house as a child. In my mind’s eye, the fireplace took up the entire room!
Maybe something like this…
That has a bit of a “Brady Bunch” feel to it, does it not?
But my grandfather’s fireplace wasn’t on the ground like the photo above. I remember it being elevated a few feet off the ground.
More like this, perhaps:
It was a sort of combination of the two above, but my goodness did it take up a lot of space!
Then again, I was probably only 10-years-old the last time I was there, and our childhood memories have a way of exaggerating things for us, but you can be certain that in the 1960’s and 1970’s, these massive fireplaces were all the rage! So those of us who grew up in the 1980’s
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Brown Floral Couch Patterns
Images like this from childhood are seared into my brain.
Considering that most couches in 2024 are a solid colour and/or pattern, it’s one thing to imagine flowers adorning every square inch of a couch, but it’s another thing entirely to imagine brown flowers.
And isn’t the design above messing with your eyes a little?
I’m seeing a man riding a horse. Are you? Seriously – look closely.
And how about this one below – tell me that’s a barn in the background, right?
I love that this couch also happens to be in front of a wood-paneled wall…
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Glass Block Windows
We still see this all the time in Toronto houses in 2024, but these are relics from the 1980’s and maybe 1990’s:
I can’t tell you how many glass block windows I saw in houses growing up.
Does anybody use these in interior design today?
Maybe. But This feels a bit more tropical to me and I might expect to see this in Florida or when I’m vacationing in the islands.
Could you see this in a 2024-build in, say, the Beaches?
Again, I think it’s a maybe. We seemed to have more than our fair share of glass block windows in the 1980’s.
Then again…
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Glass Block Stairs
If I failed to make an impact with the glass block stairs, how about glass block railings?
Can you remember a house like this?
Any chance you lived in one?
What in the WORLD were people thinking back then?
Sorry, but when and where did this look good?
Like I said: I’m not an interior designer, but this is a fad that I hope never comes back.
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Red & White Checkerboard Floor Tiles
Surely you or a friend of yours had a kitchen floor like this in the 1980’s:
We’ve all seen black-and-white checkerboard floors before, and you could probably find an updated style of that flooring in the foyer of an eclectic Rosedale house today.
But what about red-and-white?
If your friend or family member had a kitchen in their basement back in the day, I’m willing to bet the floor was this pattern.
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Pattens Everywhere!
Speaking of patterns, another fad back in the day was patterns on just about every piece of decor.
Pillows, carpets, couches, curtains, you name it.
And while this photo might make you think 1970’s, I saw a lot of this growing up…
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Carpeted Bathroom Floors
My grandmother had carpet on her bathroom floors.
It made me nervous, for some reason.
Then again, she had carpet on the toilet lid, so maybe I was just constantly in a state of shock.
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That’s about all we covered the other night, and while it might seem like a lot, my kids still wanted more.
They always do though, right?
It’s any wonder they got to sleep before 10pm, but I digress…
Which of these do you remember?
And what else stands out in your mind from the time you were growing up?
I’d love to know!
And on that note, have a wonderful long weekend, everybody! See you back here on Tuesday with a look ahead at the fall real estate market.