70s Bedroom Style – Make a Unique Statement
With wall-to-wall shag carpeting, chipboard ceilings, and bright orange and brown colour schemes, there’s no decade as polarising as the 70s for interior design. It, indeed, was a love it or hated it a decade. We loved it!
If you love 70s style too, you’ll be pleased to know it’s making a comeback and could be next year’s hottest interior design trend.
Here’s how to get the look for your bedroom:
Bed style
70s beds were wooden, made from darker woods like oak or dark wood veneer. Velvet beds grew popular in the late 70s, with mustard yellow, brown, and purple very popular. Headboards were nearly always wood or cushioned.
When choosing your bed, follow the rules above, go for something modern (light wood, grey fabric, or metal), and use other furniture to balance the style. Remember – your bed is the focal point in your room, but it can be eclectic.
Bedroom furniture
The 70s embraced disco culture, the exuberant use of bright colours and geometric patterns, creating groovy spaces. Bedroom furniture was brightly coloured, often yellow or brown, or natural wood with thin legs and carved designs.
Technicolour furniture is fun and will give your bedroom an instant 70s look, but it can get outdated. Instead, look for mono colours like yellow, purple, and orange. Moulded plastic furniture is another popular 70s style you can jump on.
Bedroom Decorating
Some of the most popular 70s decorating trends were textured walls and ceiling (chip wood), brightly coloured paint in orange, green, yellow, and purple, or if people were a little more laid back, they went for brown and cream wallpaper.
The 70s revival embraces brown and cream, which you can give a modern twist by choosing something a little lighter. Brown and cream striped wallpaper will give your bedroom instant 70s appeal, or you can go for orange and white for a youthful twist.
Bedroom furnishings
Gaudy lamps, lava lamps, shag pile rugs, paisley patterns, macrame, and rattan, were 70s favourites. Some of these are still popular today, like lava lamps and rattan. We love a bit of macrame, and Dreamcatchers look great!
Another popular bedroom furnishing in the 70s was the humble bean bag, but people went big with bean bags that filled half the floor. Today, we’d opt for a single-seater bean bag with cord fabric (ideally mustard yellow) for that 70s look.
70s Bedroom colour schemes
You can’t go wrong with brown and crème with splashes of orange and mustard yellow, or you can prominently turn this on its head and use brighter colours. Avoid blues, greens, and greys because these only gained popularity later.
Purple and hot pink are choices for orange and yellow, and they can work exceptionally well when used on prominent furniture. For example, you could use hot pink bedding to make your bed stand out even more.
Bedroom flooring
70s flooring was nearly always carpeted, ideally in a wall-to-wall shag pile. Modern living doesn’t bode well for shag pile, so settle for a shag pile rug instead. Another option is a faux fur rug, ideally in a bright contrasting colour to your floor.
If you need a new carpet, go for something neutral and use a retro rug. If you want hard flooring, go for whatever offers versatility and eclecticism (the last thing you want is to install extravagant 70s flooring that will go out of style).
Bedroom Lighting
Tall floor lamps were big hits in the 70s, but lava lamps stand out most. Lava lamps that change colour are an excellent choice for illuminating your bedroom with a 70s twist. Best of all, they never go out of fashion – they fit in every style!
Ceiling lights in the 70s had rattan light shades, fabric, and crystal shades, but the shades most associated with the decade were glass light shades. Orange glass shades look fantastic when hanging from a ceiling, bringing warmth to bedroom spaces.