Residential Interior Design
70’s Vibes
Completed
2026
Scope
Decorating only- living room, dining room with minor updates to the kitchen.
Project Partners
Interior Design | Helen Austen Interior Design
Photography | Craig Keene Photography
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This home came with a history worth protecting. A young professional couple had purchased the wife’s grandparents’ house and wanted to honor its original 1970s character instead of erasing it. The paneling, striped wallpaper, and turned wood posts were part of the home’s personality, but the rooms needed to feel more intentional for the couple’s life now.
The challenge was to preserve what made the house meaningful while giving the living room, dining room, and kitchen a warmer, moodier, more pulled-together direction. It needed nostalgia with taste, not a time capsule.
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Helen leaned into the home’s original architecture and character, using the existing paneling, wallpaper, and wood posts as part of the design language. Rather than hiding the 1970s details, she gave them better context through lighting, furnishings, flooring, and a cleaner mid-century direction.
Updated lighting made a dramatic difference across the main spaces, while new LVP flooring created a more cohesive foundation throughout the first floor. The result is a home that still honors its past, but now feels more confident, more current, and much more personal to the people living there.
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Living room and dining room decoration
Minor kitchen updates
Original paneling preserved
Original striped wallpaper preserved
Turned wood divider posts preserved
Updated lighting throughout key spaces
New LVP flooring on the first floor
Warm, moodier mid-century direction
