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Home / Other Rooms / Attics & Basements

Design a 1970s family room using vintage, new and reproduction items

pam kueber - Updated: November 10, 2020

Retro Renovation stopped publishing in 2021; these stories remain for historical information, as potential continued resources, and for archival purposes.

I get in the mood to make a mood board when I find one spectacular element to build around. In the case of this 1970s family room inspiration design, the idea started when I spotted the new sofa, pictured above. It’s from Younger Furniture, and it’s upholstered in a brown corduroy. Gosh, nothing screams 1970s to me like corduroy, and I’m very happy to see it back, it’s a great material.

This Younger sectional is for a family room — meant to lounge on. So I pictured super comfy cozey — a That 70s Show man cave. To create the room I found:

  • The Younger Grace sofa with chrome legs.
  • The Memory Lane wallpaper mural from Thibaut … This is a design that’s been in production for decades. As we recently learned, LBJ even had it in his Texas house.
  • The rug is also new. It’s New Zealand wool — in rust — in a shag. Various sizes available, on ebay – see link below.
  • The pole lamp… two bargello pillows… and Warren Platner for Knoll wire-base glass-top coffee table are all vintage, also spotted on the bay.
  • Note, this mood board needs one more little green something.

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CATEGORIES:
Attics & Basements furniture

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12 comments

Comments

  1. bepsf says

    March 25, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    What that room needs is a La-Z-Boy in Olive or Gold Herculon!

    Well, no – I wouldn’t put anyone through that decorative misery again – but Room and Board does have a great recliner with an edgy 60’s/70’s vibe, particulary when it’s in their “Maize” leather:

    http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/product/detail.do?productGroup=3129&catalog=filter&menuCatalog=room&menuSubcategory=201206

  2. jkaye says

    March 22, 2011 at 10:17 pm

    The colors here are very much like what was in our 70s basement family room. but our stuff was not quite so cool. It was all former living room stuff that had gotten shabby. We had a big print of an old training chugging across the prairie hanging on the panelled walls above a brown sectional. Our carpeting was multicolored stripes rather than a solid, but the greens and browns and beiges were in there. My parents rounded things out with some old bookcases painted in the “antiqued” look, in avocado green.

  3. hillary says

    March 21, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    Love it. When I was a kid, our family friends had a den with a corduroy sofa in it that I thought was the most amazing wonderful comfortable piece of furniture I had ever seen/felt. I still hold corduroy sofas in very high esteem (also corduroy suits…truly a child of the 70’s!).

  4. Tut says

    March 21, 2011 at 11:28 am

    A fern and a macrame owl wall hanging. Maybe a red and orange string-art picture of a sailboat or suspension bridge against a black or brown background.

  5. rechercher says

    March 21, 2011 at 11:08 am

    Photo mural wallpaper (maybe green trees and ferns in a forest) instead of illustration mural would read more 70s to me. Also I don’t remember sectionals of that era having the chaise feature (correct me if I’m wrong–maybe I just never saw any), I guess one can just pretend that the recliner section (saw plenty of those!) is permanently extended…

    • pam kueber says

      March 21, 2011 at 11:30 am

      I didn’t mean for it to be a totally authentic interior … more “channeling the 70s”

  6. Urbanitra says

    March 21, 2011 at 9:18 am

    Wouldn’t a rain lamp look great hanging from the ceiling, too? Remember the those lamps that had the oil that ran down plastic strings that surrounded a little statue?

  7. Sara D says

    March 21, 2011 at 8:33 am

    It’s funny, cause those are totally the colours of my 70’s basement! Except the couch is orange corduroy, and the walls are brown panelling. It’s totally ugly but I love it. So yes… yes I would do it 🙂

  8. BungalowBILL says

    March 21, 2011 at 8:24 am

    I would have put the big Harris Strong cityscape over the sofa ( like I’ve done in my own home). If you’re going for a 70’s look, the thing that says 70’s to me is a big schefflera tree in a big white plastic planter. They were all over the place back then. If the room was on low light it would be a dracena marginata.

    • pam kueber says

      March 21, 2011 at 8:35 am

      I was looking at Harris Strong, too, but could not resist Memory Lane. I think one of those is going to end up in my house at some point. Soon.

      • BungalowBILL says

        March 21, 2011 at 12:20 pm

        Yes i could see that in your house, or Gavin’s.

  9. Chris says

    March 21, 2011 at 5:57 am

    Right now, Rooms to Go has a WONDERFUL big brown corduroy sectional that we almost bought! It is large, but not too large, and quite reasonable. I want to say the style name was San Antonio….?

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