Comments on: Why do people stay in their time capsule houses?

By: frankieswife

frankieswife — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:22:45 +0000

DigNDesign-is this the house they used in the filming of “Ray”? The life of Ray Charles? I recognize the front of the house and the den from the movie when he lived in LA with his family during sixties.

By: DigNDesign

DigNDesign — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:04:05 +0000

Oops, I made a typo in the name of the street. The link is http://3893franklin.com. Sorry about that.

By: pam kueber

pam kueber — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:07:19 +0000

DigNDesign – link not working. can you check it and add it again? Many thanks, Pam

By: DigNDesign

DigNDesign — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:58:16 +0000

Here’s a marvelous midcentury time capsule in Los Angeles that’s currently on the market: http://3893frankin.com. From the furnishings to the stonework to the AMAZING double ovens in the kitchen, just to die. Did I hear someone say road trip?

By: caymangirl

caymangirl — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:37:50 +0000

I am now the owner of my grandparents 1953 ranch style brick home that still has the original “Standard” pink bathroom fixtures and the other bathroom has the blue “Standard” bathroom fixtures. My mother grew up in the house, as did my sister and myself. Now I am raising my daughter here. We have no desire to update the bathroom fixtures….many people admire them and want to buy them from us. The all-ceramic toilet takes three strong men to pick up, but its worth it. The only fixtures in the house that have change are, of course, the refrigerator..the stove we have is from the 70’s (Yellow, of course)!

I was not alive in the 1950’s, but we have a great admiration for the time period, and you cannot find this kind of quality anymore! We have real estate people calling us all the time to see if we want to sell!

By: sumac sue

sumac sue — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:46:31 +0000

No time capsules in my family. My maternal grandparents moved a lot — they loved to haggle and dicker and get a better deal and make a profit on buying and selling houses. The best buy they ever made was when they purchased a house from my parents! My dad was taking a job in a different town, and my folks couldn’t find a buyer for our house, so my grandpa said, Oh, we’ll just buy it. That meant when we went to visit them, I got to sleep in my old bedroom! That meant more years of memories from my childhood home — until my grandparents did some more wheeling and dealing, sold it, and moved somewhere else. Lots of great memories from wherever they lived.

By: Lane_in_PA

Lane_in_PA — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:34:27 +0000

We’re preparing to retire soon and hubby asked me if I wanted to stay in our Mid-Century Modern house. (Actually he didn’t call it that, he said something disrespectful about our home, he called it “old”.) I said that I wanted to stay here, but if we did move to another home, it would have to be even older, like an Arts and Crafts/American bungalow.

New homes have no soul. Their windows are blank eyes staring at the street. The “openness” of the combined living area, dining and kitchen provide no walls for displaying artwork. What is the point of these MacMansions if there’s no wall space for artwork?

Like Tera wrote, “Why buy new, cheap things?”

Americans have devolved to the thinking of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, to loosely quote Oscar Wilde.

By: SMD

SMD — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:46:54 +0000

loved the article and yeay for RetroRenovation/Pam! i love all of the homes, even the 80’s one. but the 50’s and 60’s makes my heart swoon! just goes to show you that what goes around comes around! cheers.

By: frankieswife

frankieswife — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:30:22 +0000

I agree with Sablemable regarding people had money to spend and they didn’t spend it foolishly. Families were proud to stay in thier homes on the weekend and “putter around the yard”. They didn’t have expensive toys like RV’s and such and didn’t feel compelled to use the toys on the weekends. Families and neighbors were so much more close knit then, when the big event of the summer was the annual block party in the street. Children came home after school to mom in the kitchen, and dad was always on time for dinner because he worked at the job same for years and had regular hours. Things were much less complicated then and it was just the simple event of living and working together as a family that brought pleasure and contentment.

By: Miss Jess

Miss Jess — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:41:22 +0000

I love hearing these stories about family and why they do the things they do – it’s amazing to me, and definitely validation as to why I buy nice ‘old’ things that so many of my casual friends tend to sneer at. I’ve got to the soul of an 85 year old woman in the body of a 24 year old, apparently.