It’s 1990. What does your living room look like?

[JandamiHash]

Mine was:

• China plates on the wall sitting on little hooks
• a burgeoning amount of creepy Royal Doulton ornaments lining every available surface
• Maroon corduroy sofas that you had to perch on otherwise you’d fall down the back never to return
• Scalloped net curtains at the window that were black with dust at the hem
• This gas fire

Grey wallpaper, grey textured ceiling paper, new trendy ceiling coving, grey carpet, an entire wall and a half of this furniture, and sofas and a chair from a random dead relative that Mum got sick of, so when Dad went away for a weekend she armed herself with a staple gun, a million yards of white and blue striped fabric, and her singer treadle sewing machine and recovered the bloody lot! I was v. small but remember the fun of cushions everywhere for days and Dad coming home and nearly having a heart attack thinking she'd bought a new 3 piece suite! 😂

Eta: I used to sit on the arm of the sofa, wipe the static off the TV screen, and then make blue sparks from my fingers to the metal furniture support. Hours of fun! 😂

My Mum had absolutely complete and utter full Laura Ashley, everywhere!

I massively miss those days.

I had an arm chair, a black and white portable tele, a vintage sideboard and a piece of blue floral carpet that just lay like a rug. No curtains/blind. I was 18, just left local authority care (after 17 year) and in my own one bedroom council flat trying to furnish it and feed myself on £31 per week.

Bloody good times though, I loved my little flat and my new found independence

It was PINK. Pink wallpaper, with a chintzy pink border. Chintzy pink sofas. Pink floral curtains with tie backs and a matching pelmet. Pink carpet. Pink circular rug with a fringe. Mahogany furniture, with pink fabric covered dining chairs. Small TV shoehorned into a mahogany cabinet, along with a video recorder. Artexed ceiling (yep, I actually paid someone to do that artexing). Diamond leaded windows. Pink vases with fake pink roses. Pink framed floral pictures on the walls. I remember being absolutely livid when that (Ikea?) advert came on TV telling us to 'chuck out your chintz'. I'm all magnolia and beige now, thank goodness.

Yes that same gas fire!
Grey corduroy sofas
Blue ans colour speckle carpet
Deep mahogany furniture tv
Myth and magic on mahogany shelves on the wall

This brings back my childhood!

Ours was teamed with a brown and floral print Axminster carpet, curtains with a pelmet. Around that time or a couple of years later we had a border round the wallpaper.

We bought a white Magnet kitchen when my DH won a share on the pools! It was so bright and clean after the one we inherited which was very dark brown with wood panelling and open shelves painted red!
The rest of the house was quite Laura Ashley-fied with lots of pastels and flowery wallpaper borders. We had a really soft leather chesterfield sofa in the living room that we'd bought second hand, and that actual gas fire.

I was living in my first flat 'The Hovel' as we affectionately refer to it nowadays.
I had a brownish floral 3 piece suite. A rented telly with a Telewest cable TV box, and a Sega Megadrive. No money to go out so evenings were spent playing golf on the Sega.
I had all the Wild Iris Pyrex dishes, and all the Eternal Beau crockery, but I think that might be the year I upgraded to BHS Country Vine dinner service.
I had MFI bedroom furniture kindly donated by my sister. It was of the usual MFI quality so my dad had strengthened it with various screws. It wasn't pretty.
Dralon curtains.

OP, seeing that gas fire reminds me aged 3. Watching Superman on the TV. I climbed onto the coffee table, which my parents still have and jumped into the (unlit) gas fire. Smacked my lip on the grill and got a scar under lip to prove it.

This sounds fabulous. I wouldn't wince.

Maroon 'flecked' sofas (thought I was the height of sophistication with a two-seater and a three-seater 😹).

Grey and cream 'Austrian Blinds' (I bloody loved those blinds at the time...looking back now though they were hideous!) Actually had them in different shades in every room 🥴

Burgundy patterned carpet with a
'Shag pile' rug in cream and grey!

Pine everything...it was a through lounge/diner, so pine coffee table, corner TV unit (with doors to hide the tv and video recorder), dining table, book shelf, side tables and a big pine dresser!

Dalton ornaments everywhere (I worked for Royal Dalton at the time so got a massive staff discount!)

Had some god awful pictures on the wall...cheap things from somewhere like The Range (but not...can't remember where). They had big white and pink flowers on and were a set of three that had to be positioned side by side. I thought they were 'dead posh'...bless my heart! I was a newly married 'young mum' of 2 under 2...and was probably just shell shocked from lack of sleep 😳 The 90s were not known for their good taste!

Perfect, because it's my parents

Natural cream(ish) wool carpet. Walls painted in F&B ‘string’, with skirtings and door frames colourwashed in a dark inky blue, over a putty colour, for a distressed look. The bay window and doors were stripped pitch pine (not the orange kind). Cream Roman blinds. A huge (could easily sit 5) orange sofa. Floor to ceiling bookshelves in both recesses, also painted in String. Orange tiles on hearth, but as yet, no fire- just a recess with a plant in it.

I’d decorated it myself and I was very pleased with it!

I was 6, and we moved out of that house a few years later, so memories are pretty vague. My parents never cared much for home "trends" and had very little money, so lots of eclectic furniture from jumble sales/antique shops etc.

Big Victorian sash window with heavy brown curtains to the floor. An old fireplace but with a gas fire with those fake coals in. I think a light beige carpet, with a sheepskin rug in front of the "fire." The walls were creamish, I think? One sofa had a high black wooden back with beads all along it, and some kind of yellow patterned satin upholstery. The other was a green velvet chaise lounge. In one corner there was a polished wood table with very spindly legs and the phone - an old rotary one - on top. In another corner was the TV, which was tiny by today's standards (?12" screen) and had a dial to turn for the channels. Lots of bookshelves with grown up books - all the kids' books were in another room.

I was 15,

Same fire as OP

Feature brick wallpaper wall

Rest patterned wallpaper (didn’t notice at the time but apparently upside down, my dad brought it up years later how upset my mum was about it 😂)

Red/brown carpet

Light karki green curtains (think autumn)

Beige sofas

Box tv, Video

Plates, loads of ornaments

Oh and the crying boy pic, was meant to be cursed!

@AtticusCatticus this sounds lovely and classy

I was 6 so can't remember it all but do remember the 2 massive second hand brown sofas and a chair. They were unbelievably comfortable and we had them for many years. The cats ragged off the awful string trim round the bottom.

Wallpaper on the walls but can't remember what. Something floral I think. The wall under the stairs was woodchip and the carpet was pale and swirly. Proper fire with a door on it and mahogany furniture. The odd ornament or picture hung but nothing too awful.

My dad and step-mum's living room was full of Lilliput Lane ornaments, Swarovski crystal animals and Piggin ornaments 🫣

We bought our first house in 1987, we were only 21. It was a new build so a blank canvas and very modern (at the time). We had a corner sofa, a plain green carpet and curtains, and (painted) apple white walls. White marble fireplace, no ornaments (still don't like them) large photo print over the fireplace of a whale's tail, a black tv cabinet and black stereo cabinet. Oh and a black nest of tables. Everyone i knew had a brown sofa, patternsed carpet and swirly wallpaper, i was adamant that i would have a plain simple decor. I loved that room, sigh.

I was obviously ahead of the times! I've always joked that I don't follow trends I start them..Walls were white, carpet 3 tone grey. Suite was a grey/blue. Furniture fake mahogany (MFI) curtains dusty pink. It was a Victorian house that was being demolished to build a petrol station.

This thread is making me nostalgic for the days of trinkets, patterns and bold colours. I really don’t like the modern clinical interior look of white and grey and minimalism

I'd just bought my first house.
Dark grey carpet. Lighter grey curtains. White walls and black furniture.
I still couldn't afford a suite so I had donated wicker sofas with a horrible swirly fabric, in shades of brown.
Lots of records and a big posh stereo system - had my priorities right 😂
Happy memories 🥹

Oh god and Artex 😱

I still miss the pier so much. It was my happy place.

I was a child in the 90s and I still miss that decade! My daughter (11) says she wishes she was born in the 90s 😂 (she loves all the stories I tell her from what it was like)

anyway, I remember we had royal blue colour sofas with little yellow and red squares on them. It was a corduroy material. Pretty sure they were from IKEA. We also had yellow painted walls in the hallway and I think some walls were dark blue. So much color. It was awful lol. My favorite colour is black. I wonder why 😂 All my clothes are black and I’d have the whole house black or monochrome if I could (I can, I’m just not sure I’d do it right)

My parents living room had a floral 3 piece suite, patterned carpet. Stripey wallpaper at the bottom, border, then more plainish wallpaper above. Curtains with lots of frills and pelmet. Artexed ceiling.

I can't remember the colour scheme exactly but lots of pink/floral patterns. Not too gawdy.

Record/CD/tape player in the corner, on top of a unit containing records, tapes and CD's. Side lamps on the wall. A stone effect fire surround. Tv and sky TV receiver, plus VCR where to record programmes you scanned a card that had barcodes (can't remember exactly how that worked, looking back now it seems very high tech!)

Daily newspapers and magazines on the coffee table. A gameboy or Sega at the other corner of the room, by the plug point there.