Modern Living: Part Sixteen

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My neighbor Thelma had a dinette set like that in the Douglas ad, but in Turquoise. They had it until sometime around 1973.

That Monel kitchen is very nice! I'm surprised it doesn't have a dishwasher, but I think Westinghouse was their supplier of those, and this ad features a Magic Chef gas range. My dad's Uncle Fred and Aunt Hazel had a Whitehead Monel double sink and countertop in their 1936 house, still in like new condition when we sold the house in 1991.

 

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Calgonite 1969

 

 

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Amy Abbott 1955

 

 

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Edison 1903

 

 

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Aldens 1957

 

 

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Sears 1930

 

 

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[Chetlaham]

Wagner Electric Corporation 1962

 

 

 

 

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Arnstrong 1950

 

 

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Ceramic Tile 1957

 

 

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Shelby Williams 1971

 

 

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St. Charles 1954

 

 

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Surf 1958

 

 

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[circlew]

I like the basement in the 1950 Armstrong ad. I'm not sure that the asphalt tile was so great, though. My basement floor was that material, and it came up in several places. Ended up having it removed by a company that does asbestos abatement. I think the ceramic tile in the following ad from 1957 would have been a much better - though more expensive - choice.

 

[jamiel]

Problem was that ceramic tile would have to be put in a leveled bed, where the asphalt tile would accommodate unevenness better. Asphalt tile was dark-ish (could not get really light colors due to the asphalt binder) but would not react to the alkali nature of the damp concrete the way that linoleum (aka solidified linseed oil, aka dissolves when in an alkaline environment) would (but didn't do well around oil/grease; and Pine-Sol/pine oil cleaners attacked it.

Vinyl asbestos tile really took the place of asphalt tile (cheap, nonabsorbent and resistant to alkali.

 

[circlew]

At that time, ceramic tile would have been laid in a bed of mortar. That can accommodate a good bit of unevenness in the substrate.

Yes, asphalt tile didn't do well with petroleum based products. I spilled some Lestoil on ours once, and it started dissolving the tile.

 

[ea56]

In 1958 my family moved into an L shaped Ranch style home in El Sobrante, Calif. that was built in 1947. It was built on a cement slab foundation with hot water, radiant heating which was wonderful, the house was always toasty warm in the winter. All the floors throughout the home, except the master bedroom, which was carpeted were covered with asphalt tiles similar to the ones in reply#27.

Shortly after we moved in my parents had the floors in the living room, dining room, breakfast room and the family room covered with cork tiles, which were really very nice. My Mom had a two head Shetland Floor Polisher which she used to buff ALL of these floors every week with Treewax. This was a very big three bedroom, three bath home with close to 2400 sq. ft of space.

Once the copper piping for the radiant heat in the kitchen floor sprung a leak and they needed to use a jack hammer to get into the concrete to repair the leak. Sometimes the boiler for the radiate heat would start to clank and it had a pressure gauge that registered the system pressure. Since I was the oldest kid my Dad instructed me how to shut off the system if the gauge was in the “red zone” and it was clanking. I felt very grown up at the age of 7 being trusted with this responsibility.

Eddie

 

[petek]

Eddie, there's a small neighborhood of similar houses here built in the early 50s. Low slung ranches with floor to ceiling livingroom windows and cement slab underfloor heating. Our house backed onto them so had a few friends there.. It was nice in the winter with that floor heating. My mother told me that when they were built they were marketed here as wonder homes. Wall to wall carpet was apparently a no go over the tiling.

 

[ea56]

Pete,
Our house had floor to ceiling windows on both sides of the living room too, just like the homes you described. It was really a beautiful home. It was built on a 1 acre lot on top of a hill with a private driveway. There was a fruit orchard behind the house.

The patio was all covered with used brick and there wasn’t one whole brick. My Dad had a young client who was in the Navy and he was a trained stone mason by his father. He wanted to divorce his wife and couldn’t afford the fee, so Dad did a barter with young Harvey who installed that lovey used brick patio that had a mosaic of different designs all done with pieces of used brick that Harvey painstakingly broke with a hammer and laid them in the mortar. The largest design was a huge Thunderbird in the center of the patio.

I recall watching him work for several weeks on the patio. It was the summer of 1958 and the popular song at the time was “Etsy, Bitsy, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” which blared on the radio out in the patio over, over and over.

Harvey drove a cute little red MGB with a black top and was a handsome young blond sailor.

Eddie

 

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Brillo 1956

 

 

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Burlington House 1970

 

 

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