So Long, Shag

When my family and I moved into our current house four years ago, the departing owners left us with a retro-70s style basement, complete with a vintage ensemble that included dark wood paneling and orange shag carpet. Pictured, for better or worse.

Since we don’t go in the basement much and to simply save money and resources, the carpet has stayed in lieu of being replaced. 

Until last week.

It was time for the shag to ship off, so I cut it up and lugged it upstairs for its unfortunate future life of clogging up a landfill for centuries.

(Note: I truly did search for ways to recycle it, but the options to do so are much more limited than I would have hoped. It currently is taking up space in my garage in hopes that I will find a recycling option before bulk trash day. Please hit me up if you have any ideas on how to make that happen!)

So, all of this carpet lugging up steps got me wondering if the consummate styles of the 1970s– i.e. tie-dye shirts, afros, bellbottoms, you know the drill– will ever truly come back into fashion, outside of the occasional Halloween get-ups or theme days at company picnics. 

If so, will I one day regret not having kept this shag carpet because it came roaring back into style and I’d be the hippest homeowner on the block?

Or, like tossing out a mint Honus Wagner baseball card, will my kids be cursing me for not holding onto this heirloom that I could have auctioned off and used the proceeds to buy a small island somewhere in the Pacific?

Or, maybe it would have been the pièce de résistance to our 70s museum that would have made us famous?

Ok, I know that I’m just grasping at straws here, since the style of the time was, *ahem*, “unique” and is unlikely to come back full-throttle in the near (or distant) future. 

Instead, I guess that this digital photo is all I’ll be left with as a keepsake of the trendy shag carpet from the good ol’ days of the 70s, when, presumably, the previous homeowners were digging the black light and shaking their groove thing in the basement. 

Well, my only keepsake of it until I get the shag out of my garage, that is. 

One step at a time…