By Jack Fifield
An IT worker has spent nearly a month transforming his home into an amazing 1970s time capsule.
First time homeowner Ryan Nicholson, 31, spent 25 days transforming the living room of his home near Goole, East Yorks., into something straight out of the ‘decade style forgot’.
Adorned with orange and brown patterned wallpaper, his living room is filled with lava lamps, a retro HiFi, and other period artwork and technology.
Sourcing furniture from Facebook Marketplace, car boot sales, and a local antiques shop, the transformation came to just $500 when excluding the cost of his HiFi.
He said: “It was a new build so it was just a bare shell, no carpets or blinds or anything like that, it just had a kitchen and stuff like that.
“It took quite a while of saving to get to this position, but I’m quite pleased with what I managed to accomplish.
“I’ve always been drawn to old electronics, that’s always been one of my big interests, I’ve been into this stuff since I was like nine years old.
“Back then I was into old gramophones and stuff like that, now it’s gone more towards 60s and 70s era, so a bit later.”
The technophile was still two decades from being born back in the 1970s, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming a full-on seventies enthusiast.
However, he does mix old technology with the new, with his $5,000 HiFi set up so he can tape music that he’s streamed on the internet.
Ryan continued: “You can record on to audio cassette, 8-track, or Sony Elcaset which is a really rare format developed by Sony in the late 70s.
“Tapes are so difficult to find now, my machine came with 15 blanks so I was quite lucky, but they go for like $60 each on eBay now, prices since Covid have gone ridiculous.”
However, some acquisitions were a bit cheaper, with Ryan able to purchase his furniture items relatively inexpensively.
“The sofa was $50, the sideboard was $25 and the corner unit was £50, I haven’t spent a lot on the furniture.
“My mom and dad think I’m a bit nuts, really, because they obviously lived through the 70s. A few people have called it ‘the decade that style forgot’.
“Since it’s been done, because I had the vision in my head of what it was going to look like, they said it looks a lot better than they imagined, it actually looks really smart.
“It’s not to everyone’s taste, I know that. A few people have said it looks like Del Boy’s apartment in Only Fools and Horses, but I really like it.”
Now that his living room has been transformed, Ryan hopes to renovate his kitchen next.
He added: “The kitchen is a brand new kitchen, I don’t really want to mess with it yet.
“When I get the funds I’d like to get a vintage kitchen, or something that looks a bit vintage.
“At the minute it’s millennial gray, as I call it.
“A 70s kitchen, you still had your microwave and stuff like that, it’s more just an aesthetics thing really, I quite like greens, oranges, and browns – earthy colors. I’m not really into gray and whites.”
