I was engaging in a bit of therapy the other day, viciously attacking a wallpaper border that had fouled my powder room for far too long.

Die, hideous border, I thought as I peeled and scraped and scrubbed.

My bathroom is now free of rose bouquets, although they live on in the laundry room – at least until the next time I need to vent aggression.

I shouldn’t be so snobby. The Laura Ashley look was enormously popular in the ’80s, when the border probably went up. Whoever chose it probably made that little powder room the height of décor at the time.

Heck, I recall almost succumbing to a teal fabric with a cabbage rose print for window valances back then.

It’s funny the way tastes change and home styles come and go.

The first couch my husband and I bought as newlyweds was mauve with a teeny country print, which at the time was trendy but today wouldn’t be permitted through my front door. It was replaced by a sofa in a big blue-and-cream check that went nicely with the folk-art cow and sheep prints on the wall. Now that sofa is in the basement, and the prints have long ago gone to Goodwill.

Recently I was watching one of those house-hunting TV shows in which a 30-ish prospective buyer poked fun at a black-and-white tile floor. It was exactly like the one we’d put in the bathroom of our first house.

And you know what? The buyer was right. That floor screamed 1990.

I’ve watched any number of styles come and go – country, Southwestern, Victorian, Art Deco. I’ve seen sponge painting and rag rolling rise and fall. I’ve seen muted colors make way for jewel tones and then go right back.

Lately I’ve found myself longing to live on the set of “Mad Men,” with all that tailored upholstery and clean-lined Scandinavian style. Yet not so many years ago, I snickered at the midcentury modern look. Starburst clocks and amoeba-shaped coffee tables were dusty relics of my childhood, bordering on the comical.

Now I’m in the process of choosing paint colors and decorative elements for my powder room, knowing full well I’m influenced by what I see in stores and magazines.

Someday whoever lives in my house will chuckle at my taste as she paints over the taupe walls and rips out the travertine vanity top I treasure. Those things will be just so 2013.