Erasing the inflated '80s home decor: Glass blocks, low cabinets, 'eyeball' recessed lights

Madonna and her pointy accouterments at the Grammys. Keep. The rest of the over-the-top 1980s can be tossed out with mountainous shoulder pads, eerie Talking Alf stuffed aliens and inflation that almost doubled the average cost of a new house (from $69,000 in 1980 to $120,00 by the end of the decade).

Erasing the '80s from your wardrobe and music collection is easy. Eradicating the strike-it-rich, "Dallas" decade from your home is harder.

Houses built with distinction in the fussy, exaggerated '80s may be looking a little dated, like the power ties women once wore to the office. Sunken living rooms, hand-textured walls and glass blocks are not yet vintage, kitschy or retrending. They shout: Remember when tall ceilings had out-of-reach plant shelves?

Recently, Portlandinterior designer Angela Todd faced the past with a clients' Northwest Portland house built in the 1980s. Her clients wanted to add a clean-lined, contemporary design to a custom house with characteristics of the mirrored-closets decade.

The floor plan in the couple's house still works, but not the telltale signs of the '80s like 4x4 white tiles on low countertops above carpeted floor.

When her clients had their home built, they added upgrades like a large shower and a walk-in closet that were ahead of their time, says Todd of Angela Todd Designs.

"They made good decisions you started to see as standards in the 1990s and that we still use today," she praises.

Still, there have been improvements in the last 35 years, especially in the master bathroom. Early recessed lighting cans had "eyeballs" that called attention to the ceiling. Those are now gone. Todd also replaced a low-to-the ground, inefficient toilet with a highly efficient, wall-mount toilet set at a comfortable sitting height.

She updated the master bath by also replacing a blocky-framed glass shower with a frameless shower and an ordinary tub built into the surrounding tile with a freestanding vessel.

"The old surround tubs that made Jacuzzi a household name take up so much space, the older style jets are hard to keep clean and the plastic turns yellow over time," says Todd.

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Erasing the inflated '80s home decor: Glass blocks, low cabinets, 'eyeball' recessed lights