The 1960's Living Room | Down the Lane

A new angle on furniture design and the coming of the DIY era.

Comparing 1960 to 1965 is almost like comparing two different worlds. Time seemed to stand still during the 1950's, people were still living as post war, make do and mend, you wore your big brother's old clothes and the inside of homes reflected this with furniture dating back to the 1930's or before.

A Lebus Furniture advertisement 1965. They're still going strong, visit their web site here.

In 1962 the Beatles arrived followed on by more youthful musical sounds which spoke about change, rebellion against conformity and bought about a new modern society. Everything had to change.....and change it did.

New build houses with little architectural merit sprung up throughout the Country (Remember 'Little Boxes' by Pete Seeger!) producing square more open rooms with less privacy than before.

In Terraced houses the fashion was to pull down the wall between the front and back room making for one larger living area.
In a way this was fair enough as the front room was usually reserved for Christmas Lunches and laying out someone who'd recently passed away!

Add to this the likes of Barry Bucknell, TV's first DIY Presenter, was telling us to buy hardboard and nail it over our older solid and well designed doors.

Furniture making became more factory lined with square designs, veneered wood usually light in colour to look good against the floral curtains and wallpaper!

Before, the fireplace had been the centrepiece of any living area, but these were now starting to be blocked in and replaced by Gas or Electric fires to supplement the 'new' Central Heating systems. This made way for the new centrepiece.....The TV Set.

All in all, it did brighten things up a bit, that's to say there was more light coming in through larger windows and matched furniture did make room for extra space, but looking back I think that most of my age group would agree, it was bordering on dire !

Come the second half of the decade the Kitchen became the next part of the house to undergo modernization with the flat pack furniture from the likes of Hygena and Schreiber taking over the world.

We had entered the interior design age and the evolution began.

And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same - Pete Seeger

1960's - The Living Room

A new angle on furniture design and the coming of the DIY era.