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- My mother's basement
My now elderly folks live in a 1950-something house. Nice little two-bedroom place, maybe 1,200 square feet, with one bathroom (as was typical then), laundry behind bifold doors in the kitchen, raised fireplace hearth on a Roman brick wall, real wood veneer paneling (as contrasted with that fugly stuff with the vertical grooves that was used extensively in the '60s and '70s),"open" floor plan (no walls separate the kitchen from the dining and living areas), etc., etc. Real nice little crib.
It had the original wall-mounted oven and flush mounted cooktop when they moved in, maybe a dozen years ago. They've since had to replace both. I was kinda sorry to hear that, as I thought the original stuff was cool. Mom says she doesn't miss it one little bit.
I've bent her ear repeatedly about avoiding anything that might substantially detract from the house's essential 1950s-ness. Alas, my sermonizing usually falls on deaf ears. A few years ago she replaced the wall-to-wall carpeting with faux-wood laminate. It's not all that bad, you know, but to me it looks like what it is, which is fake wood. I argued that while that laminate stuff is much less expensive initially than solid wood flooring, it is false economy in the long run because it will wear out eventually, and when that day comes you can't refinish it, as you could real wood. She replied that when that day comes she will have long since shuffled off to the Great 1950s Rambler in the Sky. And besides, she said, the writing is on the wall. Many of the single family residences in her neighborhood have already been demolished and replaced by condo structures (she lives in a mountain resort community), and that's what will almost certainly happen to her place as well.
She's right, of course, much as it pains me to acknowledge it.
It had the original wall-mounted oven and flush mounted cooktop when they moved in, maybe a dozen years ago. They've since had to replace both. I was kinda sorry to hear that, as I thought the original stuff was cool. Mom says she doesn't miss it one little bit.
I've bent her ear repeatedly about avoiding anything that might substantially detract from the house's essential 1950s-ness. Alas, my sermonizing usually falls on deaf ears. A few years ago she replaced the wall-to-wall carpeting with faux-wood laminate. It's not all that bad, you know, but to me it looks like what it is, which is fake wood. I argued that while that laminate stuff is much less expensive initially than solid wood flooring, it is false economy in the long run because it will wear out eventually, and when that day comes you can't refinish it, as you could real wood. She replied that when that day comes she will have long since shuffled off to the Great 1950s Rambler in the Sky. And besides, she said, the writing is on the wall. Many of the single family residences in her neighborhood have already been demolished and replaced by condo structures (she lives in a mountain resort community), and that's what will almost certainly happen to her place as well.
She's right, of course, much as it pains me to acknowledge it.
