Actually, I hesitate to use the word “ugly” because obviously the decor in our house was to someone else’s taste, but most certainly not ours. And really, except for the kitchen, I don’t think it’s truly ugly, just not as attractive as I’d like. By any definition, however, the kitchen is ugly.
With that disclaimer, I present, my new home.
All snarky comments welcome, as well as suggestions. Bear in mind I reserve the right to reject all suggestions and do it my way!
Holy cow! My house had the ugly plywood valences too! And the never-before-cleaned chandelier! Your kitchen is nicer than mine was, but the color scheme places you in the lead.
You really have to buy a house like that with blinders on. The textured ceilings are great, and I always get comments on mine. And houses of that era are really pretty damn solid. It took some work, and it’s been five years and I’m still working, but it looks like a good house. I but you have untouched wood floors underneath that hideous carpet. The tack board is a bitch to take out. Use an adjustable pipe wrench, grip the tack, and roll the wrench forward. If I can impart one bit of wisdom to your job ahead, that would be it. Those things sucked.
Have fun!
Did you get on one of those shows where the neighbors redecorate your house? If so, you should move because they hate you.
I’ve been meaning to pull up a bit of carpet and see if we have wood floors. I’m betting no, but I could be wrong.
I rather like the textured ceilings - certainly better than the nasty “popcorn” ceilings we had in Florida. Matching the texture will be interesting when we remove the wall between the family room and the kitchen.
The pics don’t do justice to the filthiness of the kitchen. Yesterday, I swear I scraped a full quarter cup of ashes from the drip pan under the stove top. And the cruddiness inside the cabinets… ick! I cleaned out the big chunks and I’m counting the days till we start demolition!
My eyes, my eyes!!!
All I can say is, wow, those people sure had lousy taste. The purple closet was interesting. As was the Contac paper for wallpaper in the hideous kitchen!
If you look past all the decorations (and the mirrored closets) it has definite possibilites! I’m sure you will make it be lovely. I can’t wait to see renovation pictures!
I’ve had the pleasure of remodeling my kitchen over this past year. The 70’s countertops…AAAGGHH! I had the fake-wood looking formica ones. But it’s finally coming together. Soon I will have a tile floor instead of concrete…
Good luck!
Um, we just bought this place. Maybe that’s why the sellers left??
Holy Crap! My mom had your kitchen wallpaper inside our kitchen drawers when I was a kid!
And what’s with the drapes between rooms instead of door? And if I lived closer, I would volunteer to rip down every single tacky ceiling border for you. But I have good news… nothing you do to this house could possible look worse than this. Have fun remodeling!!
We bought it for the possibilities. Everything else was a bonus!
The doorway drapes were very fashionable at some point. I remember my Aunt Eleanor had them in her house - back in the 60s, but I expect the style predates that. I’m dying to tear them all down, but they’ve got to stay in place until UglyFest on Saturday. Then they’re gone!
Disclaimer All comments are based on the premise that you want to get out of the 70’s.
Wew! Where to begin! Well here goes.
Kitchen: My mother’s kitchen looked nearly identical to yours, with tan colored tupperware and a few puke green colored tupperware…remember that stuff in the seventies and early eighties? What kind of budget are you working with? If it is fairly liberal, I’d suggest tear out the counters and start fresh with either stone or stone colored formica. Something to pick up the green linolium.
The cabinets look nice, but the wall paper must go. Grab your iron and steam that schizophrenic stuff off the walls. Go with a nice solid color when painting. I’d suggest a nice oceanic blue or green even. The color all depends of you take out the green roman linolium and place tiles down. Please do this
Living room - :eek: AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! The carpet. Uhh…must be changed. If I were at a cocktail party in your home I’d walk into that room and probably fall on the floor in a blathering attempt to make sense of the patterns in the yellow carpet. I’d have to look up the entire time. Very scary. I’d suggest a crow bar for the wall wood, a nice mauve colored wall, maybe even light burgundy, and a fair light brown/light beige carpet. Not shag.
Please take the draps off the doors.
If I had more time I’d write more…as I love interior design…Its the whole environmental psychology thing. 
I remember house-hunting during my Denver years. It seemed like the entire population of the city went on a collective remodeling spree in the late 1960s and early 1970s. About 70% of the houses I walked through, including those built long before WWII and WWI, had wood paneling, avacado green carpet, harvest gold appliances, and Z-Brick.
I know why you bought the house. It’s the yard. That is a wonderful yard. As long as all the problems are only cosmetic, you have a great house there. The ugly stuff is easy to fix.
the wood panneling must go
OMG. It looks like it’s out of the Brady Bunch on Acid.
Although, I must admit, the currently excited-to-buy-our-first-house-chick in my is going “Oh, man, we could do a LOT with that!”:).
Needless to say, we’re pretty sure we’re going to end up with something similar that needs a lot of work!
Ava
Just be sure to keep the bird clock in a place of pride!
And nothing says “classic beauty” like an avocado-based kitchen!
Susan
Looks a lot like the house I rented in Dublin, CA.
Also looks like the situation of a house that just got the works in Extreme Makover: Home Edition. A family bought a huge house and couldn’t afford to decorate it or buy furniture. There wasn’t really anything wrong with the house, it just had a bunch of big, empty rooms with blank sheetrock walls, and almost no furniture.
The team still came in and tore out all the walls, though, which was kind of confusing. I mean, there wasn’t anything wrong–they just replaced perfectly good sheetrock with brand new sheetrock… oh, and then they painted it something other than white. And brought in furniture. Guess they don’t generate the big audience interest if they say, “Well, we’re leaving this house pretty much as it is and we’re going to paint it and add some chairs.”
HOLY S!!! Okay, here’s my take on it. The previous owners were colorblind, obsessed with That 70s Show, liked kinky sex with mirrors allllllllllllll over the house, and were packrats. That said, the house has loads of potential and that nice big lot is to die for.
“The Brady Bunch” could have been filmed in this house! When my in-laws moved in to their current home in 1978, the kitchen had avocado green metal cabinets, lemon-yellow painted trim, and green carpeting. It was waaaaaay more hideous than your kitchen. And it took them two years to get the money to remodel.
Anyway, that is a great house! The back yard is fantastic, the front porch is great, and, after some painting, new carpeting/flooring and the deck out back, this house will be a peach. And, with proper prep work, the brown paneling can be painted over, it looks fine if you do it right. Some friends painted over it in their house and I didn’t notice until they told me (not that I’m an expert, of course). And I’ve never seen drapes over doorways before. I find it very odd.
I don’t want to know what you paid for the house, but if the sellers were a bit smarter, they would have spent a few thousand on paint and carpeting, and the house would have sold for more. But bully for you since they did otherwise!
I speechless at the sheer amount of ugly. The kitchen alone makes me dizzy … in the bad way. But it’s got a lot of possibilities. As Ava said, the never-owned-a-house part of me would be thrilled at the prospect of redecorating.
Starting with the kitchen. shudder Best of luck to you. Can’t wait to see the finished product!
We’re most definitely getting out of the 70s - we had plans drawn up before we even closed on the house.
The wall between the kitchen and the living room in being moved 30" into the living room. The wall between the kitchen and the family room is going away. All of the flooring is going away, although the bedrooms will keep theirs for a while longer. The kitchen, dining room, and part of the family room will be a composite tile that looks like stone. The new carpeting for the rest of the family room and into the living room and down the hall will be something not orange or blue.
All window coverings will go away and be replaced. All wood paneling will go away and be replaced with sheetrock walls. The kitchen cabinets are crap - really - the doors are all of half an inch thick. They’re going into the basement for storage down there. Our new cabinets will be a medium-stained maple in a shaker style, and there will be more of them. The door between the kitchen and dining room will be moved, giving me a U-shaped kitchen.
All borders will be removed - I’m hoping for crown molding throughout. All appliances are gone - the fridge will go to the basement, and the stove is just gone. There’s an avocado fridge in the garage that’s gone too, bit I’m keeping the chest freezer.
I’m still working out my plans for the bathrooms - one is much more extensive than the other, but both include getting rid of the blue toilet and tub, and both vanities and sinks. I’ll send the blue cherubs to the first person who pisses me off!!
Oh yeah - and I’m planning to install at least 3 of those tube-style sky lights. But first I’m organizing a telethon to pay for all this…
I think I could survive most of it but that lime green tile in the kitchen would die early on the first day. 
