One 1950s designer’s choice for this golden yellow living room decor: a large-scale wallpaper pattern that had white to dress it up, plus striped window shades for added smartness.
yellow decor
The restful core of this vintage 1960s house was the gorgeous skylighted atrium family room, which gave the whole house a sense of spaciousness.
A room to relax in, to revel in, to play games in – when have we had a room precisely for that? This 1960s party room could do all that and more.
This vintage study’s boho decor included at least eight different styles – and that’s not even to mention the designs featured on the area rugs on the floor.
This dramatic circular kitchen, inspired perhaps by contemporary theatres in the round, was a superb example of a smoothly-functioning kitchen back when it was built in 1968.
While the structure of the room remained the same, right down to the black ceiling beams and trim. The furniture placement also didn’t change for this retro living room’s decorative mood switch.
Space expanded in a small room when compact furniture was paired with visually expansive wall art — all created to decorate this space age small apartment back in 1970!
A smashing mix of style, color and pattern energized this small pink & yellow panda bedroom decor.
Here’s how one interior designer back in the early 1970s envisioned a retro-futuristic living room – a space filled with fashion-forward furnishings that were modern, fun and colorful.
Here’s an inviting vintage boho-style tented nook that was created almost entirely with patterned fabrics and carpeting.
The white brick fireplace effectively divided the living room from the dining room without obstructing the flow of traffic. It was massive, but the overall spaciousness of the combined areas kept it in scale with the rest of the house.
A small white birch tree was brought inside to live in a planter on this elevated and carpeted indoor terrace – a peaceful, pretty and very retro addition to a home that was decorated in the mid-1960s.
What this retro family room needed was color, pattern, and texture. And it definitely got it, going from bland neutrals to colorful super 70s home decor!
In this room from the mid-1950s, a striking harlequin pattern wallpaper, as dramatic as gift wrapping, lined one side of a small dining room.
Stylized blossoms centered in twined hearts – in fabric form – swept over walls, bedspreads, curtains, and window shades in this pretty 1960s dormer bedroom.
Wallpaper with an open mesh wicker weave pattern of yellow on white covered the walls, and established the basis of the warm country-style bathroom decor.
In this light and breezy midcentury modern bedroom, the bright gleam of brass acted as a foil to the rough-textured masonry walls and the matte finish of unstained, unpainted wood.
In this vintage 1960s living room, a mirrored fireplace wall beautifully reflected a bright sunshine yellow color scheme.
This beautiful vintage striped sunroom decor complimented the garden’s natural greenery that was just on the other side of the three glass window walls.
Instead of a separate dining room, this late 60s home in Northern California had a classically-styled yellow dining area that was part of a large open-plan living space.
Full of candy colors, this cheerful open-air bubblegum pink sunroom from the 70s was set up to make it easy to have a little party any time.
A simple decorative feature – a dining room’s mirrored wall – didn’t just add luster and elegance, but also helped fool the eye to make it look like a smaller space was really a lot larger.
Take a look at this vibrant lemon yellow and black retro living room, and you may feel like you just woke up and found yourself back in the seventies.
In this modern white living room from the seventies, colors from the large abstract picture determined the entire room’s ultimate scheme.
The effect of at least one solid wall was gained by installing a good-looking, functional built-in wall cabinet. As a bonus, it gave this living room a focal point.
In this bright and beautiful floral bedroom from the 1970s, flowers stretched across the walls, were appliqued on the bedspread, and clustered in china pots.
This sun-drenched retro blue & gold bedroom from 1976 featured a color scheme that matched the outdoors, setting the colors in a rich large-scale floral print.
Throughout this high-end 1960s home, antiques and modern furniture were paired with confidence, as exemplified by this luxe vintage dining room decor.
You’ve seen brick fireplaces, tall fireplaces, freestanding fireplaces… but what about a mouth-shaped fireplace with scalloped inner edges that looked a lot like teeth?
Looking back at this goldenrod living room, you can see that this 1960s New York living room was filled with the feel of late summer sunshine.
This cheerful bedroom decor from the 60s was warm and sunny – aglow with yellow, the go-with-anything color.
This mid century modern dinette set was from around the time when mod design became widely available with a range of colors and shapes, and was much more affordable than before.
Vintage Williamsburg Restoration furnishings were used to decorate this modern semicircular dining room in a two-story-high space.
This living room was mostly decked out in earth tones, but went beyond the usual with two cozy cubic cantilevered chairs that somehow made a seat made of squares seem comfortable.
A personal room that invited family or friends, this cozy sunroom from the 70s was a dazzle of color – but the colors never intimidated, never overpowered.
This cozy vintage living room decor from the late 1930s/early 1940s featured the kind of clean, crisp lines popular in early modern decor.
Two vintage bamboo screens worked together to create a feature wall for this 1960s dining room – and in the process, covered up a window with no view to speak of.
In this radiant 1960s yellow dining room, the largest areas of color fell in two unexpected places to create a flood of sunshine distilled by two different versions of the color, Goldfinch and Lemon Peel.
This Early American-themed powder room, seen here as it was back in 1966, showed how wallpaper could be used in truly creative ways that went far beyond the usual.
This gorgeous living room full of exotic color could have come out of a Venetian palazzo, with tall shutters, bold shades and a creative style.
Covered with painted nasturtium flowers, the style of this warm and cheerful bedroom from the 1920s was both casual and classic.
When choosing how to accent this small yellow, green & orange bedroom with a single bed, the designers kept it simple by using a bright color scheme, and look that had a bit of a Southwestern flavor.
A masterly mix of patterns gave warmth and a sense of intimacy to this hug vintage Texas living room/great room.
Vibrantly colored stripes, overlaid with a floral pattern, blanketed this little yellow & blue bedroom from the mid-1960s.
If you were looking for some stereotypical midcentury modern kitchen decor, this little kitchen from 1959 pretty much had it all.
Because of its dramatic expanse of glass, this 1960s living room’s tall window walls demanded a fabric showy enough to make a decorating impact, yet sturdy enough to stand the sun.
In the sixties, how would American interior designers express a little Asian flair? Here’s a look back at some vintage Japanese-themed kitchen decor.
In 1950, a midcentury modern living room designer created a welcoming space that offered distinctive color, buoyant originality, and practicality.
In this guest bedroom, two plaid-covered four-poster beds got energy from the yellow background of the fabric, as well as how the colored stripes were accented elsewhere in the room.
To create an alcove where none existed before, one interior designer got creative with a canopy and crystals, mirrors and material, for a must-see effect.
This charming 1940s dining room owed much of its smartness and originality to the dramatic floor in a Chinese fret design, with a center section of black Marbelle.
For this stylishly eclectic living room, the decorators chose a warm scheme of yellows and off-whites “to emphasize a hospitable spirit.”
Straight out of the 70s, here’s a superb year-round party room, keyed to Pineapple Gold, a winter hospitality color, against Designer Hector Grant’s green and white background.
Several shades of green were in play on this 1960s kitchen island cooking center, in shades so vibrant, it couldn’t help but be the room’s focal point.
Like most striking rooms, this windowless sitting area’s well-blended elements were surprisingly simple. Here’s a look.
This elegantly decorated marble bathroom, clad in gold and black stone, was paneled with painted moldings in the Louis XVI style.
Sunshine brightened this cheerful 1930s morning room – a sort of casual sitting room or family room, positioned in the home to catch the morning sun.
One great fabric sparked this great idea for this DIY four-poster bed decor – the unglazed chintz that’s dominant throughout this bedroom, used on the bed, windows and walls.
This silvery and shiny bathroom decor from 1969 was once an interior designer’s concept of the ultimate in contemporary bathrooms.
A thick shag area rug sparked the spring-summer mood of the entire green dining nook, creating the kind of fabulously retro room you don’t see much today.
As seen back in 1967, this cool white apartment decor had decor that was crisp and invigorating – with bursts of yellow and green to warm it up.
A fresh pattern on the wall – like this black & white wallpaper – works bigger decorating wonders than almost anything else you can do.
Using the famous Mondrian-inspired interior design blocks of red, blue, yellow and white, these vintage 1970s cabinets and drawers took on new vibrant life as home decor with real function.
Here’s a geometric graphic-clad sunken bed in a bright red room! The DIY decor for this 1973 bedroom was made from sheets, towels and carpeting.
This retro room’s imaginative midcentury modern luxury style decor was the complete package: simple but luxurious, unique but functional.
As this girl’s interest and sewing expertise grew, she asked her parents to transform a tiny, unused back room into a super-efficient, light and cheerful sewing room just for her.
