Life

14 Things You'd Find In Every '90s Home That You'd Never Find Today

by Megan Grant
Disney

Did you ever take field trips in school where you would visit period homes and get to learn about how they lived "back in the day?" Rotary phones, record players, having to do everything by hand — that's how decades before us lived. But what are some things you'd find in a '90s period home? In the '90s, we were on the brink of an enormous technological explosion and, let's face it, we knew how to dress. No one rocked overalls, platform shoes, and bowl cuts like we did. No one.

Nineties home staples were a recent conversation of Reddit, and the comments will give you all the '90s feels. It'll take you back to the days of Zebra Cakes, Savage Garden, and writing in milky pens when your teacher definitely told you to use a No. 2 pencil. You'll feel like a kid again — a kid bouncing around in Moon Shoes and beating up your siblings with Socker Boppers while your mom screams at you to be quiet because she can't hear Mad About You over the sound of you screaming.

If you grew up in the '90s, odds are you had at least one of these popular '90s items in your home.

1

The Iconic '90s Computer

Why were they always beige? And why were they huge? Computers today are paper thin; what were the giant box computers of the '90s hiding inside? Intricate wiring? A Buick? A 10-piece band?

2

A TV Of Epic Proportions

Today, less is more. When people come to your home and see a really flat TV, they comment on how clear and crisp the picture is and how impressive the audio sounds. Back in the '90s, however, bigger was better. If your TV wasn't roughly the dimensions of your garage, you were a loser.

3

A Magic Eye Picture

Nothing could make you sick to your stomach quite like staring at a Magic Eye photo and trying to find the damn hidden picture. I personally think there were never any pictures hidden in there, and the Magic Eye people were just trying to make us vomit.

4

Carpet In The Bathrooms

Whoever came up with the idea to carpet the inside of bathrooms clearly never lived with a man. Also, sponge-painted walls were my mom's jam. She perfected the technique with a variety of sponges and methods for creating the perfect effect.

5

Floppies

We never should've stopped using floppy discs. They made such a cool noise when you flopped them. Side note: I was the last living human to still be using floppy discs and only stopped when there was literally not one computer model left that you could stick them in. I received many strange looks from people who thought I must've been a time traveler.

6

A Bean Bag

There was no feeling quite like jumping into a giant bean bag — until the bag sustained a hole that you couldn't locate and every time you jumped on it, beans shot out and landed all over the floor. Mom wasn't happy.

7

A Wall Phone With A Twisty Cord

The cord was never not twisted. There was always some well-meaning person in the household — usually your dad — who would spend the time to delicately unravel and untwist the whole thing. Then you would mess it up 10 minutes later. Really, it wasn't your fault. It was the cord people's fault. That cord so wasn't child-friendly.

8

A Waterbed

You were given specific instructions not to jump on the waterbed, but you did anyway. You loved to stand on it and pretend you were surfing — until it sprung a leak and you blamed it on the cat. To this day, no one knows the truth. Sorry, Mr. Fluffy.

9

Dial-Up

That noise. That has to be the most memorable noise of the '90s. Today, when a web page takes more than three seconds to load, we want to flip out. In the '90s, dial-up was so slow that you had time to get a snack while you waited.

10

Fake Tile

One day, somebody woke up and said, "Instead of putting real tile in homes, let's install fake tile that pretends to be real tile, except it looks horrible and cheap!" And then we had linoleum floors.

11

Tapes

Cassette tapes were the bomb dot com. The only downside was when they came unraveled and you tried to fix them, only to find out that they'd never play properly again. Sad story.

12

A Ketchup Imposter

Artificial coloring, schmartificial coloring. Who cares? As suspicious as it looked, many of us couldn't resist funky colored ketchup that made eating our fries and chicken nuggets so much fun.

13

Caller ID

When we first got caller ID, it was huge. Technology was unbelievable — we could, like, know who was calling us without having to ask them. And better yet, we could ignore people we didn't want to talk to. Personally, I think this was a real turning point for us.

14

Inflatable Furniture

You know, the kind where if you sit on it too long, the backs of your thighs stick to it. No one really cared that they weren't that comfortable and didn't match any of the other furniture. We had to have them.