Dream Homes From the Past Five Decades

2020 is here, and we’re thrilled to be celebrating Royal Building Products’ 50th anniversary! In the spirit of nostalgia and our love of home design, we thought we’d take a stroll down memory lane and revisit the idea of a “dream home” in each of the past five decades. Are you ready for a blast from the past?

The Seventies

Home Style: One-story rancher
Design Style: Bohemian
Cladding: Clapboard
Material: Teak
Colors: Harvest gold and avocado green

Homeowners in the 1970s were clamoring to fill their one-story ranchers with teak furniture and all the harvest gold and avocado green decor their hearts desired. Bohemian decor, a reaction to the stark modernism of the 60s, was all about bright and bold colors. Today we still see one-story ranchers, and shows like HGTV’s Fixer Upper made it trendy to update your rancher into a suburban modern farmhouse. But more on that later…

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The Eighties

Home Style: Contemporary
Design Style: Modern
Cladding: Vertical Clapboard
Material: Glass
Colors: Teal and coral

Modern style took over in the 1980s, with homeowners wanting to incorporate bold touches like glass block walls and windows into their homes. Contemporary homes are still designed and built today, so you might not even consider some of the homes built in the 80s to look “retro” the way we usually think of 80s designs.

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The Nineties

Home Style: Neo Eclectic
Design Style: Maximalism
Cladding: Brick
Material: Wicker
Colors: Magenta and turquoise

Interior design in the 1990s was an eclectic mix of the decor styles that came before it, resulting in a “maximalist” approach. Eclectic actually describes more than one aspect of the 90s dream home — we refer to the home exterior style that emerged out of this decade as “neo eclectic,” characterized by an oversized look and feel and the use of an overwhelming amount of brick. It’s trendy to partake in some 90s nostalgia these days, so maybe we’ll soon see wicker furniture and floral prints come back into style.

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The Early Aughts

Home Style: McMansion
Design Style: Maximalism
Siding: Brick
Material: Granite
Colors: Brown and bronze

If you’re not familiar with the term “McMansion,” you’ll probably at least recognize the architecture style it refers to. In the years just before the housing crisis of 2008, McMansions were built in vast numbers and many sit abandoned today. Chunky granite countertops, dark wood, bronze accents, and brown decor galore…the maximalism of the 90s lived on in the dream homes of the early 2000s.

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The 2010s

Home Style: Modern Farmhouse
Design Style: Rustic-industrial
Cladding: Board & Batten
Material: Shiplap
Colors: Black, white, and gray

The black and white modern farmhouse trend that exploded on the scene in the 2010s is widely attributed to interior design guru and HGTV star Joanna Gaines. Her rustic-industrial style and consistent use of shiplap captured the hearts of the interior and exterior design worlds. The 2010s dream home modern farmhouse most often uses white board & batten siding with black accents, but lately we’ve been seeing a trend of black modern farmhouses that break the mold.

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What home trends will come to personify the “New Twenties”? Follow along on our Instagram channel for all the latest trends in exterior design and share your remodeling projects using #DesignYourAbode.