Late 50s interior decor

[Neil]

Here's a link to an image of the recreation of a 50s interior at the Castle Museum in York. I'm a child of the sixties but I remember that my Grandma's terrace house had a similar atmosphere/colour palette. From memory the doors, architrave and skirting were all a dark brown scumbled finish, not being overpainted in white till the late sixties/early seventies. My great aunty had a smaller, more humble terrace and less disposable cash than my grandma and grandad. her house still had the Victorian range in the back room (deep maroon enamelled) cream nondescript patterned wallpaper, dark brown Victorian furniture and the same dark brown doors and woodwork that my Grandma had.

 

[Dikitriki]

Thank you everyone. I really do appreciate the time and effort you are going to to respond

One other thing that occurs - disposition of rooms. Now, clearly we are going to be modelling only the front half of the houses - it's the row of 5 terraces including the shop in this picture....



I inagine that there is a hallway through the front door, stairs up left, and a door to the sitting room which is at the front of the house.

What about upstairs? I imagine a double bedroom and bathroom at the back of the house, and 2 small single bedrooms at the front, maybe one larger than the other.

Does that sound right?

I know it's 1/48 (perspective modelling!), but I have bought quite a bit of stuff from here http://www.petite-properties.com/ to have a play with.

Thanks.

Richard

 

[JimG]

What about upstairs? I imagine a double bedroom and bathroom at the back of the house, and 2 small single bedrooms at the front, maybe one larger than the other.

If those are Victorian era properties then there might still not be internal bathroom and WCs in the 1950s. I can remember a great aunt and uncle getting their inside toilet and bathroom installed in a Victorian era tenement in the late 1950s and I remember filming projects in Glasgow in the early 1970s where blocks of tenements were being modernised by installing WCs and bathrooms. They did this by taking the "single end" on each floor and sharing the space between the other flats on the floor to provide the facilities. A single end was a small kitchen/living room/bedroom flat squeezed in between larger flats on a floor.

See here

http://www.glesga.ukpals.com/Memory SingleEnd.htm

Note the hole in the wall bed (recessed bed) we discussed last night.

Jim.

 

[Phill Dyson]

I inagine that there is a hallway through the front door, stairs up left, and a door to the sitting room which is at the front of the house.

What about upstairs? I imagine a double bedroom and bathroom at the back of the house, and 2 small single bedrooms at the front, maybe one larger than the other.

Does that sound right?

A quite common layout for terrace houses would have the front door straight into the front parlor with the staircase up the middle of the house(between living room & kitchen). Going up the upstairs there would usually be two large bedrooms either side of a very small landing at the top of the stairs, the rear bedroom was quite often split off to create another smaller room for the bathroom.

Phill

 

[Heather Kay]

A quite common layout for terrace houses would have the front door straight into the front parlor with the staircase up the middle of the house(between living room & kitchen).

My Nan's old house was just like that. Two up, two down, with a scullery/washroom tacked on the back. All the rooms were quite roomy, too.

This is a fascinating thread. Enjoying it a lot.

 

[ZiderHead]

Those look just like my grandparents house without the bay, they moved in just after the war. The 2 windows upstairs with one aligned over the front door suggest a similar layout:



They called the tiny room at the front the "cot room" … because thats what it was used for. Other ideas:
* an upright piano in one of the front parlours
* telephone in the hallway - either on a shelf or a very small table

 

[Purple-haze]

When I was 6months old in 1947 we moved to a newly built council house,and lived there until I married in1973.The house was 3 bed semi,solid floors downstairs, with lino covering throughout.By the mid 50's we still had an old copper boiler for clothes washing,rugs,no carpets! only a radio,open fires in 2 downstairs rooms and 2 bedrooms.There were picture rails but only mirrors hung there.We only had distemper on the walls and the woodwork was painted whatever customer the oil drums were being made for at that time. I remember Castrol green and red (literally) vividly!At this time of the year the house always seemed to be full of damp washing,fresh ironing,steam from Christmas puddings which appeared to take days to cook and the yearly treat of making festive chains from books of sticky coloured paper bought from Woollie's. Happy days?

regards

Rog

 

[Neil]

The layout of terraces varies from area to area, even within the same town or city. Though some of the York terraces I knew had a front door which opened directly into the front parlour they most commonly opened into a hall. I've done a couple of sketches of my grandma's and Aunty May's terraced houses which typified York.



More relevantly for Heyside the first Mrs Rushby hailed from the East Lancs town of Colne. Her parents had a terrace where the door opened into a hall (a mirror image of my Grandma's) but the stairs headed off at 90 degrees between front and back rooms. Later they moved into a smaller terrace where the door opened into a wood and glass lobby in the front room.

 

[Dikitriki]

Everybody, and particularly Graham, Jon and Neil, thank you. The drawings are really helpful. I'd forgotten about the outside toilet bit, and bath tub hung on the wall, and assumed a bathroom on the top floor where perhaps there would be none.

Richard

 

[demu1037]

Morning Richard

Note the comment earlier re gas lighting, dad was an apprentice elctricain at the time and a lot of jobs were installing electric lighting, they alwas did a follow up visit after a couple of weeks to check all was ok, one old lady was really plesed as she could see to light her gas lamps, at which point she turned the electirc ones off!!

Andy

 

[JimG]

Morning Richard

Note the comment earlier re gas lighting, dad was an apprentice elctricain at the time and a lot of jobs were installing electric lighting, they alwas did a follow up visit after a couple of weeks to check all was ok, one old lady was really plesed as she could see to light her gas lamps, at which point she turned the electirc ones off!!

As an apprentice electrician in the late 20s/early 30s, one of my father's favourite jobs to be on was the wiring of a house with gas lighting since you could pull out the block tin gas pipe and earn a bit down at the scrap yard. I do remember when my brother got his first house in Glasgow in the 1960s that my father re-wired it for him and found that the block tin pipe had not been removed when the tenement flat had originally been rewired. So he carefully went round the house and removed all the block tin pipe so that my brother could re-coup some of his wiring costs. Unfortunately, my mother never realised the value of the pile of twisted pipe near the doorway, and gave it away to a rag and bone man who happened to come round door-to-door. Dad was not pleased.

And to get back on topic, one bit of furniture which was quite popular then was a pouffe - we had two in our living room and they were great toys for my brother and I.

Jim.

 

[Rob Pulham]

A quite common layout for terrace houses would have the front door straight into the front parlor with the staircase up the middle of the house(between living room & kitchen). Going up the upstairs there would usually be two large bedrooms either side of a very small landing at the top of the stairs, the rear bedroom was quite often split off to create another smaller room for the bathroom.

Phill

I have a 100+ year old terrace house and it's laid out just as Phil/Jordan describe except the bathroom is on the ground floor tagged on to the rear