In every 70s US home ever

josefa OTM, this is one of my biggest pet peeves in period movies. and one thing I liked about Stranger Things - that the working-class Winona household was less aggressively "80s" in its furnishings

my friends were really into the Kinks when I was in high school. they were much more socially advanced than I was

I remember the record player at our house and those at others' houses, and the experience of listening to records with friends

this is actually why i can relate to this thread - shit, i don't actually _remember_ the '70s, i just know all this stuff from growing up in the early '80s.

my goddaughter who is 11 is my sweetie. it is interesting to see how she relates to her world today, it is a world I couldn't imagine in the 70s

rushomancy otm
I wasn’t born until the 80s but my parents bought
nearly all of their possessions in the 70s and furnished their house after getting married mid-decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObdEUA2rwGg

"come to think of it many of the clothes on our backs were a toxic, flammable, and choking hazard all rolled into one" I just remembered I used to have pajamas that were 100% polyester and used to get static so bad it was like seeing lightning under the covers.

In every 70s Chinese restaurant ever: the pu-pu platter.

Pu-pu platters originated in tiki restaurants and then Chinese restaurants adopted them. I don't think I've ever had one, but they sound decadently appealing. Spare ribs, crab rangoon... most people shy away from eating such things today. But perhaps the pu-pu platter could make a comeback in post-covid times when people don't give as much as af.

*of af

S&H Green Stamps

Pu-pu platters originated in tiki restaurants and then Chinese restaurants adopted them. I don't think I've ever had one, but they sound decadently appealing. Spare ribs, crab rangoon... most people shy away from eating such things today. But perhaps the pu-pu platter could make a comeback in post-covid times when people don't give as much as af.

Tiki drinks have been making a comeback among cocktailians. Maybe tiki cuisine might make a post-covid comeback, when occupancy limits are back to normal and restaurants want to lure people away from delivery or home cooking?

Seems like a lot of this stuff may appear in ILX's new favorite TV series, FOR ALL MANKIND.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPwxmrNVKKE

This is a huge chunk of my childhood here

Omg. It looks like every single cast member of ‘Dynasty’ also appeared on ‘Love Boat,’ right down to the Carringtons’ butler. That video would be a good cultural reference for young people of today, like say if they were studying Late 20th Century Show Biz.

OK, deep dive time.

I was going through the list to see exactly what we had in our house. We built it in 1969; I was age 8 to 18 in the '70s.

What we had, with annotations:

(cheap) wood-paneled rec room
shag carpeting - Blue & green in my bedroom, pure white in my sister's
A pool,or bumper pool, table as well as an air hockey table - Pool & air. Finished basement, drop ceiling, one wall taken up by a giant photo blow up of sunset through trees.
Supersized brick hearth - Brick fireplace taking up 2/3 of a wall, slate hearth, enormous rough-cut wooden mantel, built in log bin. Every few years we'd rent the Powerful Paul hydraulic log splitter to turn a fallen tree into firewood
Price, Stern, Sloan parody books like Uses for a Dead Cat - Definitely had 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, also Mad Libs and Droodles. Related: "Earl the Dead Cat" flat stuffed cat with tire treads printed on its back
Beach Boys Endless Summer - Sister
a coffee table made from a cable spool - Not a coffee table--we drilled holes in it and used it as a pool cue stand
a rotary-dial phone with an extra-long cord (so you can take it somewhere private) - Stretched down the hall and under the bathroom door
erica jong fear of flying - Stole it from a drug store. The concept of the 'zipless fuck' was very formative in my non-existent sex life. (First paperback gay sex: Samuel R. Delany's "Dahlgren"--page 444, if I remember correctly)
shogun/the thorn birds/all other novels later turned into richard chamberlain miniseries - "Thorn Birds" and several other Colleen McCullough novels
thin brick/faux brick wall - Painted white, surrounding the built-in avocado-colored oven
stained glass chandelier - Faux stained glass Coca-Cola swag-chain lamp in my bedroom (actually white plastic with the stained glass portion painted on the outside of the shade)
Ferns - And snake plants
Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat - Also: Spam, Shake 'n' Bake pork chops
Crock Pot
Fondue set
The Book of Lists - I had a lot of trivia books. In particular, I remember one called "Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst and Most Unusual," bought from the mail order remainder book and record catalog Publisher's Central Bureau.
A lazy susan, or possibly several
People's Almanac / People's Chronology also big in those years
Massive console TV that takes no fewer than four people to move, so fuck it, let's just leave it there for the next seven years. - Heavy not just because of the console--this was a pre-transistor cathode ray TV run on vacuum tubes. The heat from all those tubes made the top of the console prime real estate for the cats.
Encyclopedias - Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, sold through local grocery stores. A couple of volumes released each month, so it took a year to get the whole set.
beanbag chair - Sister's room
the poster from the inside of "dark side of the moon" - My room. Also posters of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiades, the Triffid Nebula, Earthrise over the lunar horizon, and the classic Buzz Aldrin pic.
Wood-grain speakers - Was there any other kind?
pong
Another bar accoutrement: wave form light thingy that is basically two dimensional analog of a lava lamp - Not sure if it's the same thing--we had a light-up beer sign that looked like a flowing waterfall. Our finished basement was full of vintage electric (but not neon) bar signs that did stuff: rotating Schlitz globe, Black & White Scotch barking scotty dog heads (https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/jn4HuXPQveQX_VxmtaX1iDPcoxg=/250x0/worthopedia/images/images1/1/0516/14/1_9dc922af56d4944cc081c00e9803c6de.jpg), 2-foot tall crow with top hat and cane that would blink "Old Crow" on his chest, Fresca Blizzard sign with hidden fan blowing fake snow around (https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/tQ75wIZRzWQfYukxx9pDmdrG6a4=/250x0/worthopedia/images/images4/1/0508/27/1_5dfa368db21d326777037034b0e50148.jpg)
Yahtzee
Sears catalog - Reprint of 1920's Sears catalog for bathroom reading
Erma Bombeck books - Also bathroom reading
crocheted afghan blanket (squares pattern) - Zig-zag pattern in browns, blacks and oranges
many items featuring Peanuts characters for no particular reason - A dirty old Snoopy stuffed animal I slept with for years, and an Astronaut Snoopy doll. Also a few dozen Peanuts books
partially completed rug hooking
Noxzema
Guinness Book of World Records
wallpaper - Always with patterns that were a little too big--they looked smaller on the swatches. Also, sponge painted walls. Mom always had some decoration project going.
Yellow Pages - Unavoidable--they just showed up on your doorstep every year
Peter Frampton Comes Alive - Sister
Chemistry set - Me. Also a rock tumbler
Sea Monkeys
The Game Of Life
(in warm regions) jalousie windows - On the back porch that my father closed in
tang - At Grandma's house
jello
Jonathan Livingston Seagull was popular in the early 70s but even as a kid it seemed banal to me
catholic homes had ‘good news for modern man’ - Episcopalian too--everybody got a copy in Sunday School
living room furniture with gold/green/brown/orange color scheme.
bronze/gold table lamps with a bulbous shape and large lampshade - Two of which are in my apartment to this day
An ashtray the size of a dinner plate
Quisp AND Quake - My sister voted for Quisp. I voted for Quake, a musclar superhero in a miner's helmet. Just another hint that I might be a little gay lad?
Jaws paperback
Spirograph
Lite-Brite
TV Magic Cards
Simon
speaking of TV, All In the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show - The Saturday CBS prime time lineup was the original Must-See TV
Health-tex, which still exists but w/o the hyphen
Zodiac posters or wall hangings -- my grandmother had a Capricorn tapestry in the basement. Wouldn't be surprised to see that make a comeback, considering astrology becoming a thing again. - Zodiac outdoor tablecloth, currently in Mom's car trunk as a drop cloth when we haul hedge trimmings to the dump
macrame owl! - Maybe not macrame, but multiple owl items including wallpaper
modern Danish furniture - I inherited Mom & Dad's old Danish Modern bedroom set when I moved out, and I'm still using it
Velvet dayglo painting of a panther that looks awesome under blacklight - No, but we had a Fritz Rudolph Hug painting of a tiger in the living room, along with a couple of landscapes bought at one of those suburban 'art shows' which showed up in local hotel ballrooms every few months.
S&H Green Stamps

wow, excellent reportage. very valuable to realize that a house ticking off dozens of these boxes is by no means just a retro fantasy.

lol, we had about 75% of those things minus the stuff that older siblings might have contributed. my parents definitely didn't have a dark side of the moon poster.

i was a several years younger than HL and oldest child

Excellent roundup there, HL, thanks.

One copy each of _I Sing the Body Electric_ and _The Invisible Man_.

Clackers
ping pong table
backgammon set
paint by numbers paintings
Galliano in that tall bottle
Reader's Digest Condensed Books

My 6th (?) grade teacher had us write sequels to one of the stories in The Illustrated Man. I did a sequel to the wraparound story, with the narrator escaping, only to find himself jumping into the stories.

The teacher liked it so much she sent it to Ray Bradbury, and I got a personally typed letter from him. (I know it was personally typed because a secretary wouldn't have let it go out with so many typos.)

that is incredibly cool

Wow

damn, that's cool!

Encyclopedias - Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia, sold through local grocery stores. A couple of volumes released each month, so it took a year to get the whole set.

We had Pears 'Cyclopedia. Not sure if that's a uk thing tho.

F&Ws seconded.

speaking of TV, All In the Family and The Mary Tyler Moore Show - The Saturday CBS prime time lineup was the original Must-See TV

DIdn't quite remember Dick Van Dyke being on The Carol Burnett Show as a replacement for Harvey Korman for a few months before he himself left and was replaced by Steve Lawrence and Ken Berry (who I of course do remember)

Gotta have a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Our Bodies, Ourselves

Good one

hanging beads in a doorframe acting as a room separator

alternatively, strings of corks

Bead door curtain already mentioned by YMP upthread, although I like the way you worded it, but cork curtain is a valuable new post, Tracer, thanks.

Light gauge fishing line to string them together. You're welcome.

Macrame, god’s eyes, table centrepiece made of wicker basket/varnished loaf of bread/dried or cloth flowers/wheat sheaves, Hollie Hobby stuff for girls, metallic abstract wallpaper in the bathroom above the tile line, the hexagonal side table in the living room with random upholstery offcuts stored there just in case.

Old steamer trunk used as side table

We had one as the TV stand but my mom ran our house like it was 1910 including the furnishings (minus the tv).

We had at least two steamer trunks, one of which was a TV stand. I think people thought they were 'valuable' but they're really not, even the really old ones

Any good flea market in the '70s had steamer trunks for sale

Big Wheel tricycle

Oh yeah. We've covered Lite Brite and the Holly Hobby oven, maybe add Stretch Armstrong?

A huge hi fi stereo that was the size of a buffet
A buffet

seemed like Love Story was really big for everyone I knew when I was a kid

as a topic of conversation

I have been stringing together glass beads over the years and have made two beaded glass curtains!

Love Story hadn’t been mentioned yet? Thank you for addressing this glaring omission.

In school we often saw the male bonding version of Love Story known as Brian’s Song. And sometimes even the parent-child version, Death Be Not Proud.

Have we discussed roller skates? Ice skates?