Dec 18 1976: 32 years later....

Another anniversary....we sure didn't imagine ourselves living in Utah 32 years after we said "I do" on a bright December afternoon in La Jolla.

Didn't see Texas in our future either. Funny how it is all turning out...

What is really making us laugh is looking at a blog that documents housing interior styles by the decades, starting in the 1950's, back when the Mister and I were kids. We scrolled through the decades, remembering this and that, then when we got to the 1970's, there it was...our first apartment's kitchen.

Or at least pretty darn close to how it looked.

The blog got really interesting when it demonstrated how the sleek 1950's "modern" looks are being found again in the late 2000's. Who knew IKEA was so retro?

The blogger then posed the question: If 2000-2008 is retro 1950's, then will 2010-2018 be retro 1960's? Quite possibly. There certainly are straws in the wind that would suggest that to be the case.

While I toured the 75 houses in my quest to find a house, I was totally struck by how "era identifiable" each house was. I was sure that each house at one time was just the most current and up to date design....yet the elements that were most apparent in indicating the era were also the elements that I found the most repulsive.

I can see how the late 1990-early 2000 Neo-Classic big houses with huge built in niches for televisions already look dated. What in the world will be the next great home feature?

If you like to walk down memory lane a bit, and see the "look" of different eras, you can click on the 1950's or 1960's or 1970's or 1980's or 1990's or 2000's. All the houses shown are in Phoenix Arizona, and it amazes me that my home town had houses that were built exactly like those houses. (The posts begin with swimming pool styles and landscaping, just scroll on down to see what was going on inside those house in the kitchen, baths and living rooms. Some of them are a real hoot.)

I've heard there comes a time in every woman's life when she says "enough" to keeping up, and settles into a certain decorating era for keeps. Eventually I think that look becomes what is known in her family as "looking like grandma's house"...and even great grandma's can remember what their own grandmother's houses had that they thought was quaint at best or hideously out of style at worst.

Us "mid-century" baby boomers wince at 1950 style interior design and decoration, yet I see blog written by 20-somethings who are feverishly collecting what is now lovingly being referred to "Mid Century Modern Design". (Atomic age star burst clocks anyone?)

I'm rambling here, but let me just say that yes, I had the 1980's tulip lamp (and actually made on in green gingham for DD's bedroom) and smiled at more than one picture that brought back memories of friends and neighbors homes. And I laughed at "poof" valences that were stuff with news paper to make them puff out correctly. Been there, done that!

On the plane ride home from San Diego I read that chintz upholstered couches with big flowers and fluffy details are making a comeback to emotionally cuddle us all through the current financial upheaval.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry to admit that I still have that style couch, custom made in the early 1980's, and delivered to my home as Geo. Bush the First was being sworn into office. Our couch, pictured above, is currently in storage with the rest of our belongings...we never could find anyone to take it off our hands in Houston.

Maybe it will be viewed as trendy-cool here in a year or so...who knows?

Now here's the kicker...if you scroll through the 50's lighting examples, you will see couches that look EXACTLY like my couch that was made in the 1980's. Yipes!

And also let me say that I really, really wonder what house styles will look like when we celebrate thirty two more years of marriage. 64 years of marriage...shoot, that happens all the time now days.

Do you suppose that red couch will keep on coming back into style every thirty years or so? Maybe we should keep it after all, and one day sell it to a person born ten years from now, who will think it is just the coolest example of Late Century Traditional ever.

You never know. Stranger things have happened.