• Older bathroom styles are back in vogue as homebuyers and renters gravitate toward nostalgia.
• Even younger people are opting for patterned tiles, matching sinks and toilets, and pastel colors.
• One 24-year-old Florida homeowner paid $900 for a baby blue toilet and vanity from the 1950s.

In August, Miami interior designer Dani Klaric shocked her boyfriend with the new centerpiece of her guest bathroom: a secondhand toilet.

The preowned throne, in a baby blue hue reminiscent of the 1950s, was part of Klaric's plan to "de-modernize" the three-bedroom Miami home she bought in May.

Klaric, a 24-year-old content creator with 2.1 million followers on TikTok as of November 27, fought hard for her used toilet. When she couldn't find the exact shade of blue she wanted in stores, she tracked down a seller on Facebook Marketplace who specialized in saving vintage bathroom fixtures from tear-down projects.

Klaric drove a rented U-Haul five hours across Florida to pick up both the toilet and a vanity for $900.

"It's way more warm and cozy and has so much more personality," Klaric told Business Insider.

Neutral bathrooms have dominated the pages of design and architecture magazines for years, but old-fashioned looks are coming back. A new Zillow report on home trends based on key terms and phrases that crop up more frequently in for-sale listings said, "2025 is set to go full granny." Mentions of "nostalgia" in listings were up 14% from 2023, while the word "vintage" showed up in 9% more listings.

Los Angeles-based interior designer Shannon Ggem told BI that "grandma bathrooms" typically feature pastel pinks and greens, elaborate tile designs, and frilly decorations. Once considered dated, they are driving trends in homebuying and interior design — even among millennials and Gen Zers.

"People are so bored of all white and gray houses," Ggem told BI. "They're so hungry for character."

Even manufacturers are observing the uptick in interest.

In 2023, kitchen and bath manufacturer Kohler reissued two "heritage" colors from its archive, a rose blush called peachblow and minty spring green. It released a limited-edition line of toilets, sinks, and tubs in the hues.

"People are gravitating toward things that pull at those nostalgic heartstrings," Alex Yacavone, head of Kohler's design studio, told BI.

Homeowners are paying to get the look

Interior designers told BI that younger homeowners are turning their bathrooms into time machines.

"I'm really seeing it grow with the younger audiences," said San Diego-based interior designer Rachel Moriarty. "They're taking that grandma aesthetic and running with it. They're making it cool again."

Moriarty recently said a San Diego client spent $5,000 restoring her bathroom's aquamarine tiles with black trim and 1930s Art Deco arches. Previous homeowners had ignored the tiles altogether or tried to paint over them. She and the client shopped for black glass knobs for the cabinets and vintage lights of the era to make the tiles stand out even more.

Ggem, an interior designer in Los Angeles, said a client is spending $85,000 on a total bathroom re-do to achieve a vintage look. The couple's home came with all-white, builder-grade fixtures they considered passé, so they're adding a floor with a tile pattern and a mosaic design on the walls, Ggem said.

"The basic finishes didn't feel like they met the luxury level of the community," Ggem said.

A landlord with 30 LA buildings preserves their vintage bathrooms

Forty years ago, real-estate developer Gene Bramson saw historic apartment buildings in Los Angeles being ripped up for the sleek, modern aesthetics of the 1980s. Bramson, who loved the intricate tile work and bold colors found in many of those properties, bought some with the intent of preservation.

"I wanted to take these places and elevate them, bring them back to their original glamour," Bramson told BI. "I just had a great feeling that these locations can't be replicated."

Today, Bramson's company, GLB Properties, manages 30 properties throughout Los Angeles, with rents ranging from $3,250 for a one-bedroom to $11,000 for a four-bedroom.

In 2020, Bramson's daughter Ivana, who also works for GLB, noticed Angelenos clamoring for colorful bathrooms. So she started posting photos of ones in the company's buildings on its Instagram account, which exploded from 6,000 to 40,000 followers between then and mid-2024. Potential tenants started reaching out through direct messages on Instagram, Bramson said.

Keeping up these vintage rooms isn't cheap. GLB spent $25,000 to preserve and upgrade a pink bathroom in a one-bedroom apartment in one of their properties, sourcing vintage tiles, installing a princess tub, and hanging salvaged mirrors. Bramson estimated a renovation with stick-on tiles from Home Depot would have cost about $9,000.

"The bathrooms are the crown jewels of the apartments. I think people can sense it's not a quick vinyl tile cover," Ivana told Insider.

Tenants seem to agree. In 2021, esthetician Biba de Sousa moved into a GLB apartment in LA's Miracle Mile neighborhood. She pays $4,000 monthly for a two-bedroom apartment with a bathroom covered in green tiles and decorative black accents.

"It's just cheerful," she told Business Insider. "It feels like my grandmother left me the apartment."

• Today, Thanksgiving tables typically feature side dishes like mashed potatoes and mac and cheese.
• Once-popular options like Jell-O salads and hot Dr Pepper are no longer part of the celebrations.
• However, some people still like to make dishes like ambrosia salad for nostalgia's sake.

No festive Thanksgiving gathering would be complete without a table heaped with steaming dishes. These days, the most popular side dishes include mashed potatoes, rolls, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

Thanksgiving spreads haven't always looked this way. There was a time when Jell-O creations and canned products reigned supreme.

These vintage food trends were often driven by economic factors, involving ingredients that were inexpensive or readily available in past decades.

Here are seven unique Thanksgiving menu items that have mostly fallen out of vogue.

Turkey leftovers were turned into aspic.

Gelatin became a popular foundation for many meals during the 1930s after the Great Depression because it was an inexpensive source of protein. According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, close to a third of all cookbook recipes from this time period were gelatin-based.

In 2015, YouTuber and vintage recipe enthusiast ThisMidlifeMillennial tried a vintage Thanksgiving leftover Jell-O recipe from a 1975 cookbook called "Carefree Cooking with Aluminum Foil." The recipe called for turkey, frozen vegetables, cream of celery soup, and ranch dressing mixed with gelatin.

"I probably would not eat this again, but it's not the worst thing I've ever had," she said.

Savory Jell-O salads made for festive centerpieces.

Jell-O salads were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

A Jell-O dish with radishes, scallions, and a few tablespoons of vinegar wouldn't have been out of the ordinary at a festive meal. Some people continue to serve them up on Thanksgiving just because.

"Modern American palates have changed to dislike savory gelatin, but that was not always the case," food historian Sarah Wassberg Johnson previously told Business Insider. "Probably until the 1960s, savory gelatinous dishes were a thing."

A "spring basket dessert" consisted of fruity Jell-O with chunks of fruit inside.

Gelatin was also popular in sweeter desserts. One example is the "spring basket dessert," which was advertised in The Ladies Home Journal in 1948.

The molded-gelatin dessert usually contained fruit juice and chunks of fruit. The gelatinous dish is no longer the dessert of choice at most holiday gatherings.

Ambrosia salad is still popular in the South, but many have left it behind.

Ambrosia recipes began appearing in publications towards the end of the 19th century, Serious Eats reported. It remains a holiday classic in some Southern homes, but is rarely seen elsewhere.

Ambrosia usually includes some kind of canned fruit with mini marshmallows, with variations that include Cool Whip, cottage cheese, and Jell-O.

Canned foods were once all the rage, including creamed corn.

A 1948 ad in the Ladies Home Journal advertised creamed corn in a can as "something to try — smooth, creamy, with plenty of tender-skinned kernels to round out the good eating."

However, in the past few decades, canned products have gone out of style in favor of fresh food. With that, creamed corn from a can has become less popular at the table, too. 

Served on special occasions, Hot Dr Pepper consisted of warm soda over lemon slices.

In a 1968 advertisement, Dr Pepper recommended serving "steaming hot" soda over lemon slices. It definitely is "something different" to offer Thanksgiving guests.

Per Serious Eats, the drink was concocted by Dr Pepper in the 1960s "to keep profits strong during the holiday season, when sales of cold pop plummet." It was apparently pretty huge in the South but has since faded in popularity. 

Hellmann's mayonnaise shared a recipe for a Thanksgiving-themed "Cranberry Surprise."

In 2013, Hellmann's mayonnaise released a compilation of vintage advertisements and recipes to celebrate its 100th year.

One of the delicacies in the collection was the "Cranberry Surprise," a holiday side dish that "blends the tartness of cranberries with the delicate creaminess of Hellman's Real Mayonnaise" with an extra dollop of mayonnaise on top to provide "the final distinctive flavor garnish."

This story was originally published on November 1, 2018, and most recently updated on November 20, 2024.