Changes in Homes since the Sixties My mum and dad both remember the Sixties and so I asked them about the changes in the home since then. Dad grew up on a farm in the country and Mum grew up in the town. They both told me that houses nowadays are definitely much more comfortable compared to the Sixties. They are much warmer now thanks to double glazing. Dad remembers the draughty sash windows which rattled in the wind. The windows in my mum's house had iron frames, but now have PVC frames and double glazing. Another thing that has been changed to make our houses more comfortable and warmer is cavity wall insulation when polystyrene or foam is put in between the two layers of brick and this makes the houses cosy and warm. Central heating is something that has been installed in nearly every home. In my mum and dad's homes there were fireplaces upstairs and just electric fires for extra heat in the winter. Sometimes I wonder how we would survive now without some of these things. There is no doubt that there are many more garages now than forty years ago. This may be because there are far more cars now. If somebody did have a garage in the Sixties, they would have used it to store things in or to do the washing in. Nowadays almost everyone has a garage or even a double garage. In the Sixties, my parent's homes did not have a shower, whereas now most homes have one, in fact some have a separate ensuite or perhaps more than one bathroom. In the Sixties, some houses still had an outside toilet, which would have been a bit cold in the winter. Some large houses now have conservatories Furniture The furniture in our houses is a bit different now than it was in the Sixties. Most of the furniture forty years ago was made of very dark wood like mahogany or oak, which was usually very highly polished. Nowadays there is a bigger variety of lighter coloured wood such as pine. There is more built in furniture in bedrooms now. In the Sixties, there might have been a built in cupboard with plain wooden shelves. The settees and chairs would have been less comfortable than nowadays. The settees were mainly two seater and tended to have very broad arms. They were covered in either moquette, which was a very hard wearing material, or else rough textured leather which was usually brown or dark red. Curtains were often made of a satiny material. People put up net curtains, and now we have something like this again only this time they are called voile which comes in all colours. Then tweed upholstery came into fashion, and you could get tweedy curtains to match. The shape of settees or sofas changed a bit, and the arms became thinner and were maybe made of wood, and three seaters became more popular. Settees and chairs had thin wooden legs, not like the older ones which were right down to the ground, and were very heavy to move. Gradually a material called Dralon came into fashion and everybody liked it because it was softer than the moquette and tweed, and it came in lots of colours like gold, green, beige, brown and maybe blue. You could then get curtains to match. Mum thinks that nowadays there is a much greater variety of styles of chairs, settees and other furniture, and more selection of colour, styles and materials. Roller blinds were popular - these were made out of paper which meant they tore very easily where you put your thumb to roll them up, and the sun burnt them and made them go yellow. Most houses had a fancy china cabinet, which held items not used by the family such as delph teapots, coronation mugs, a china toast rack, painted egg cups or white china dogs. There was a key for the door but children were not really allowed to open it. Nowadays we have something similar but we call them display units. Home Heating Lots of houses had a brass box which sat by the fire and held logs or sticks. Often there was a brass coal scuttle and a companion set to match. These are not used as much nowadays because not as many people have a coal fire. In country houses there was a brass fender around the fire, and some older houses still have these. A large fireplace would have been made of marble or a smaller one from small creamy coloured tiles.Now a lot of fireplaces are wooden or made from fancy stone and are maybe just for style, as people do not light as many fires. Usually a wooden wind up clock sat on the fireplace, and often these clocks did not keep good time. Now we have electric or battery clocks which are much more accurate. Decoration In the Sixties the colours used to decorate a home were probably duller than nowadays e.g beige, cream, gold and brown. Nowadays we use a greater variety of brighter colours e.g. purples, pinks and brighter greens and blues. Most of the wallpaper used in the Sixties was embossed with flowers or large symmetrical patterns, or perhaps had stripes or broken stripes with gold or red and cream. Carpets were designed with small floral patterns of browns or reds, and were of good quality wool which lasted for years. There would also have been plain carpets, or a pattern of one colour, in a large leafy design. When it was finished with, the carpet was maybe cut down to fit a smaller room. Nowadays carpets are rarely made of wool and do not last nearly as long and are often taken to the dump afterwards. Of course we have plenty of variety of colours and patterns which there was not the case in the Sixties. Every house had a picture rail near the ceiling. You hung a bronze hook over the top of it and then hung a picture on the bottom part of the hook, but the cord on the picture was always showing. I think picture rails do not really exist any more. Children's Rooms Bedrooms would have been plainer and duller than nowadays. The furniture would have been dark and the paper maybe quite plain. It would have been more difficult to find brightly coloured wallpaper for children's rooms, because even the coloured paper was not as colourful. The shades were paler. Boys might have had wallpaper with pictures of cars all over it. Mummy remembers getting new, modern wallpaper for her bedroom. It had pictures of crinoline dolls all over it. She thought it was great. However, she thinks that the patterns of wallpaper nowadays are much prettier and there is a much bigger variety. In the Sixties, more children had to share bedrooms, and often two or three shared a double bed. Most children have single beds now. Mummy remembers that the wardrobes in the Sixties were very high, and many of them had keys in them. Children had difficulty opening them. Nowadays there is built in furniture in children's rooms or wardrobes with lower handles. Many more children have desks in their rooms now, and so do families - some have an office type room which holds their computer and a filing cabinet. This would have been rare in the Sixties, and desks would have been more formal looking and kept more as an item of furniture. Many houses had a bureau, and you could lift down the door of to write letters. Kitchens Mum and Dad both thought that one of the biggest changes in the home since the Sixties is in the kitchen. Most kitchens nowadays are fitted out with lovely built-in units of oak or pine. In the Sixties this was not the case. Back then, there were painted cupboards, or maybe they had a covering of formica in grey or beige. Many kitchens had a free standing cupboard which was pale yellow or pale blue. It had a pair of glass doors at the top, and two wooden doors at the bottom. In the middle there was a door which lifted down and you could cut bread on it. These were done away with when fitted cupboards came into fashion. In the Sixties you would have had a smaller kitchen and maybe a scullery where you did the washing,etc. The scullery is now called a utility room, and it would be a nicer room. Dad's house had a pantry as well, where the crockery was kept. The kitchen in farmhouses was used for eating and sitting in, and the range kept it warm. Some modern houses have ranges now, but they are called stoves and would be run on oil or electric instead of coal or wood. That would be a lot cleaner and not nearly as dusty. Most houses would have had a separate kitchen and dining room. If the kitchen was fairly small, the family ate their meals in the dining room. Nowadays, families normally eat in the kitchen or in a dining area attached to the dining room. This would be more convenient, and a bit more informal. In both my parents' homes, there was a hatch from the kitchen through to the dining room, because it was a long way to carry the food. The dining room furniture would have been more formal than nowadays, and perhaps the table was French polished which meant you had to be careful not to spill anything on it. Lots of white tablecloths were used and these had to be sent to the laundry. The seats of the dining room chairs were able to be taken out and covered with tapestry material when they wore out. Nowadays this is not done so much. People use mugs now - these were not around so much in the Sixties. There is much more equipment in the kitchen nowadays, and this makes the work a lot easier. My mum thinks that kitchen roll was a major invention - she does not know how anyone could have survived without it! In her home there was a roller towel on the back of the kitchen door. In the Sixties, only some homes had a food mixer, and this would have been a very large and expensive item indeed. More of the cooking, baking and preparation of foods would have been done by hand, for example beating cakes, cutting up vegetables for soup, making pastry or batters. Nowadays we have food processors, liquidisers, electric hand whisks and more elaborate food mixers to help with these jobs. Microwave ovens, dishwashers, fan assisted ovens, electric griddles, toasted sandwich makers, built in hobs and ovens, slow cookers, multi cookers and deep fat fryers are just some of the electrical appliances which were unheard of in the Sixties. Even toasters were not available. Toast was made under the grill, or perhaps on a fork in the fire. Most kitchens in the Sixties had a very large saucepan which was used for making soup or jam. Wives would have made enough jam to last the whole year. Nowadays not so many do this. There was always a kettle singing on the range. This idea has come back again and you can now buy kettles similar to the old-fashioned ones to boil on the stove. Many homes, especially in the country, had a griddle for making soda bread or potato bread on. This was used on the range. Although we still have griddles which are often electric, people do not make as much bread. It is more available in shops now, and people do not feel they have the time to bake Even though we have more gadgets, my mum thinks that we do not make as much home made food as the people in the Sixties did. Barbecues are now a popular way of eating in the summer. I don't think barbecues were invented in the Sixties. Changes in Foods Before fridges were invented, every house had a larder, which was a small room about the size of a cupboard with stone walls. There were air vents in the side of it and the idea was that you put food in there to keep it cool. However, Mummy thinks that the butter still went very soft and oily in the summer time. You covered foods up with muslin to keep the flies off. The bread might have been kept in an enamel bread bin. Tupperware boxes were just starting to come into fashion, but they were very expensive and not too plentiful. People bought a lot of dried and tinned foods because they were easy to store, e.g. dried peas, pudding rice, tinned fruit, tinned peas or meats. However, fresh food was usually cooked because there would not have been as many convenience foods as nowadays. There was not the case as much selection of foods in the shops as there would be now. More bacon, frying ham, Irish stew or roasted chicken would have been used, and the meals were plainer, served with boiled potatoes, turnip, cabbage, onions or tinned peas. Things like curry, pasta, pizza, stir fry, lasagne or spaghetti bolognese would have been unheard of. Vegetables and fruit such as mange tout, baby corn, green peppers, bean sprouts, mango or fresh pineapple would not have been in the shops. Frozen foods were not available, neither was the variety of pre-packed vegetables and meals which we see now. People now seem to make meals which are quicker and easier to prepare, and they tend to use convenient items like ready chopped soup vegetables, pasta or boil in the bag rice which is more expensive but handier to prepare. Children nowadays enjoy a lot more variety of meals than their parents did, and they can try foods which come from other countries. They eat more unhealthy foods sometimes, e.g. chips, burgers and sausages, and not as many fresh vegetables even though there are more to choose from, and not as much plain potatoes and bread. The Laundry A major change 40 years on is the way people do their washing. First of all you had to wash the clothes in a boiler. Then they were lifted out by wooden tongs and rinsed in a sink in the scullery which we now call a utility room. The clothes were then put through the mangle to squeeze out the excess water, and then pegged on the line to dry. After this the twin tub washing machine came into fashion. It had two drums, one which washed the clothes and one which spun them dry. Everyone thought this was a great invention because it was a big step up from the previous way of doing the washing. Since the Seventies we have had the automatic washing machine as well as the tumble dryer. These two machines have taken the effort out of doing the washing. Home Entertainment In the Sixties T.V.s were just coming into fashion and they were all black and white. Not every home would have had a T.V. set whereas nowadays everyone has one set or even more than one. Television is all in colour now. If there was anything big on e.g the 1966 World Cup final, people would have gone to each other's houses to watch it. T.V.s were very bulky in shape in the Sixties and often had a wooden case around them whereas nowadays they are slimmer and have a bigger screen. They also have remote control which was not the case heard of in the Sixties. Video recorders, satellite T.V., CD players, cassette players, DVD players, play stations, computers and hi-fi systems were all unheard of in the Sixties. In the past people entertained themselves more by playing board games etc. Quite often they would have sat around the piano and sang. Nowadays people have a wide choice of entertainment on T.V. and video. Alistair Bell - P6 - Ballyclare Primary School   Another Story Competition Index Return to Main Page