Goodbye to the World’s Coolest Basement
This week got a l’il emotional as I bid goodbye to my grandparent’s home. Even though they both had passed a while back, my whole family was a bit attached to their place and it took some time to finally decide to let it go.
For me, the hardest part about it was that it was a perfect time capsule complete with wood paneling, funky carpets and even rotary phones (which now reside in my home). It was like stepping into my childhood every time i went there:
I played with my Mike Power: Atomic Man in this corner, wrote my first post college resume on that desk and more recently filmed the Brick Mantooth toy commerical here.
The house was built in the mid 1960s and honestly I think they stopped decorating around 1972. They kept everything perfect so it was museum quality and it was also filled with weird “high tech” items like electric space heaters and intercoms in every room!
Seriously, what kid wouldn’t play with this for hours? It was like living in the Venture compound!
This house will forever remind me of catalogs (my grandmother kept them for years, so yeah I got it from her), the Lawrence Welk show (which I hated then but now cannot get enough of) and Dean Martin records. I’m sorry to see it pass but I’m also taking all of those things with me, so it’s never truly left has it?
Speaking of “taking it with me” I did manage to inherit something, somehow my siblings, parents and even nephew didn’t fight me from getting what was truly mine.
Yes, this magnificent belt massage device works and it’s all mine! Those fools just let me have it.
Thanks for reading, have a terrific weekend!
this house looks eerily similar to my parents' house on the East Mountain (Hamilton!). If the basement closets also have wallpaper featuring 60's-era space artwork (Sputnik, etc) I'd say it was the same place!!
Possibly the same builder? This is Oshawa, so not impossible.
Love this: "I think they stopped decorating around 1972." Thanks for sharing!
I'm a huge nostalgic so these pictures are so great to see! So "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." 🙂 I love that wood paneling; we had it in the den of the house I grew up in; my dad kept it intact even when my sister was born a decade after me and we renovated the den into her bedroom.
My dad worked at the factory that made that paneling. Our entire house was paneling in various shades. Even our bathroom.
That would be like living in a ski lodge!
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I love the pictures, and agree that is the coolest basement ever. I LOVE the wood paneling, and that ever-'70s orange and brown color scheme.
I feel your nostalgia. My mom sold her house last year that I grew up in. My parents bought the house in 1970 for $12,000 and sold it for $82,000. I love her new place, but the old homestead will always hold a special place in my heart.
Beautiful! I get it. This reminds me of the basement of the house I lived in circa 1974, except I had the orange shag carpet. It was our family room, where our console floor TV was, so many hours were spent there watching Saturday Morning cartoons and shows like the Six-Million-Dollar Man and Starsky & Hutch. I know how it feels to let it go, so I feel for you, man. Yet take it from me, it will always be a part of you and will be there to give you melancholy warm fuzzies throughout your golden years.
Wait…Brian, is that the same carpet that was in your grandparents' shoe store in the mall?
Umbratikus, one in the same. I think they used it until the early 80s.
Wow!! This is so amazing! Thank you so much for sharing as all I could think about was my old childhood home and it's 70s decor which I miss! Keeping it alive like this, you'll never forget and the awesome memories will always be with you!
Good god. I would trade a kidney (not my own) for that carpet!
Amazing memories! I would be so sad to see it go, but I understand why you had to. I am obsessed with homes like this that have such a history- and that fantastic 70s decor!!
I hear you. Every time one of my family's 60s and 70s era homes were sold upon someone's passing, a bit of my childhood died with them. The wood paneling, avocado fridges and wall phones, yellow and orange wallpaper, and awesome carpeting brings back so many joyful remembrances of years gone by. My grandparents loved to watch Lawrence Welk on weekends and I still tune in in their memory whenever a rerun is on PBS. If I had the dough, I'd buy that house back for you to keep, along with those of all my departed loved ones. Thanks for sharing the pics and memories.
A bittersweet time, but your memories of their home will last a lifetime. I noticed that the carpeting in your grandparents' basement was the same as in the shoe store that they ran in the photo you put up awhile back.
Groovy pad, man! Especially with the high tech gadgets for their time and that brown and yellow patterned carpet!
Thanks for sharing this! I actually think I discovered your site when I googled "Sears Wish Book" years ago. Glad that there are a lot of people out there with the same love of nostalgia.
Made me miss my grandparents. Thanks for a great site.
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