Everyone Owned These In The '80s, Now You Can Find Them At The Thrift Store

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The 1980s were an interesting time to live in. Often called the "greed decade," but really it was more like the era of availability. After the 1979 trade agreement between the U.S. and China, cheap household goods and electronics began to flood the market, making everyday items more affordable to the middle class. For the first time, the average homeowner could purchase not just necessities but also luxuries — kitchen appliances, household decor, and entertainment systems that felt previously out of reach. Now, decades later, these items can be found at your local thrift store, ready to be used as nostalgia decor for your retro-inspired home look.

There are a lot of ways you can bring the 1980s retro aesthetic into your home, and they don't have to involve mustard yellow shag carpet. There are a lot of '80s home decor trends that are begging for a comeback, and you can do it in a way that doesn't feel tacky. There's the tried-and-true method of finding one piece as a central focal point to use as inspiration for the rest of your room. You could follow the new cozy maximalist trend and fill your living area with items that give you a sense of nostalgic sentimentalism (remind you of your grandma's house). 

No matter how you choose to incorporate vintage 1980s items into your home, you should keep an eye out for some items that were truly a part of almost everyone's daily life. Back then, it was almost like they passed out a catalog of staple items to have in your home if you were a middle-class family.

Fiber optic lamps became a novelty piece for decor in the 1980s. There were two popular types of these illuminators that appeared in homes during the decade: fountain-spray-type lamps and flower-arrangement-style lamps, usually in an acrylic case. Fiber optic threads were not as well-known as they are today and were seen as futuristic at the time. Finding one of these lamps at the thrift store would make a unique focal point for your retro-futuristic decor.

Patrick Nagel posters and framed wall art were in all the most popular girls' rooms in the 80s. Each image practically screamed the era's decadence. They featured images of cool, model-esque women in bold primary colors on simple backgrounds, with sharp geometric lines and a flair for drama. One of the most popular bands of the 80s, Duran Duran, used a Nagel print for the cover art on their 1982 album, "Rio." Nagel's art defined this era of flashy style and decadence. Finding one of these prints at the thrift store might prove a little difficult, but there were many artists who copied his style, so you may be able to find a reproduction.

In the 80s, not many of our homes had cordless phones yet, and many of us had never even heard of a cell phone. Every now and then, the dinosaur of a phone known as a corded landline shows up at the thrift store, and for those of us who lived through the 80s, the memories of dragging that thing across the house for privacy quickly come flooding back. It's true in the early 1980s, many homes had only one or two phones, and you had to share with everyone else. It was truly a sad time. What's worse is that if you were on one line, your mom or little brother could pick up the other line and listen in to your private conversation. Younger generations will never understand the pain of the corded phone.

There were many examples of brass lighting fixtures from the 1980s that were practically standard in every home, and the smoked glass chandelier was one of them. Well, those and the Hollywood-style lights over the bathroom mirror. This chandelier featured a frame made of brass that had small hooks around it to hang smoke-colored glass plates. Sometimes the glass panels even featured etched designs. It may be easier to find these chandeliers at the thrift store, because Gen Xers are hopefully convincing their parents to remodel their homes after 30 years.

Hi-fi sound systems in the 1980s became more affordable for the average person. You could buy a standard system from JCPenney for a reasonable price and have a fairly decent setup. While cassette tapes were still the most popular form of listening to and recording music and audio, the introduction of CDs was about to change everything. Thrift stores often still have these stacked hi-fi systems, sometimes in cases with glass doors for you to live out your mixtape creation dreams.

Before the PC took over our lives, we had to use electric typewriters to type up papers for school or work. Almost every home had some form of this giant device. If you were lucky, you had the kind that didn't need liquid Wite-Out to fix your typos. By the late 1980s, many homes began to toss their typewriters for fancy PCs that had word processing programs and printers. You might be able to spot one of these vintage pieces of technology at the thrift store to snag, which would make a great conversation piece for your retro decor.

If you're like many of us who grew up in the 1980s, then you probably have fond memories of the VHS system. Some of us even remember having to choose between VHS and Beta. Thankfully, you can still find plenty of VHS tapes at the thrift store (most likely Disney movies). And there are also still VHS players haunting the shelves of your local Goodwill. So, you should have no problem finding one of these vintage players and VHS movies to add to your entertainment setup. There's nothing more '80s than grabbing some popcorn, sitting down with the family, and being threatened by the FBI before the title screen even appears.

Every mom in the '80s was looking for a way to store leftovers so they stayed fresh for an eternity, and Tupperware had the solution. And every child of the '80s remembers being told to go play while their mom and her friends passed around brightly colored plastic containers that burped to let you know they were sealed. While there were many different items from the Tupperware line that graced the kitchens of suburban homes in the '80s, the canisters are now starting to show up in thrift stores. Maybe it's because they were one of the more durable pieces of Tupperware (who knows). If you're looking to store pantry staples, these canisters should last well past the zombie apocalypse.