<p>my bridal shower was at H’s Italian’s aunt’s apartment in Queens – second floor – no AC on a 100 degree day in July. And the aunt, (who was truly wonderful) had been cooking all day – lasagne. All the Italian aunts from Long Island were there – sitting on the plastic covered furniture as they awaited my arrival. I’ll never forget the sound of peeling flesh as they stood in unison to welcome me into the clan.</p>
<p>ivoryk - that is an iconic American story.</p>
<p>
A man room.</p>
<p>Well, if you want to trade wallpaper stories…</p>
<p>Our first house (the one of the lavendar brocade dining room) had optical black & white wallpaper in the bathroom. Don’t know how that would have looked on the morning after, and never tried to find out. </p>
<p>And the bedroom had wallpaper squares (remember them? Easy to Hang!) in a sort of orange lattice pattern, but they were hung CROOKED. So if you cocked your head at about 17 degrees off vertical, it looked perfectly…well it still didn’t look that great, but the nausea went away.</p>
<p>And the one room that WAS painted white, was almost certainly painted that way because it was formerly black. We’re guessing during the 60s, somebody had a black light in their black bedroom…:eek:</p>
<p>ivoryk—the peeling flesh —that IS a classic! Make me laugh out loud! (So of course, had to tell H what I was laughing at!!) <em>he rolls eyes</em></p>
<p>LOL here too. Lucky dh isn’t here to roll his eyes too.</p>
<p>Wacky Aunts, another common theme?</p>
<p>I had (still have!) a pretty wacky aunt. The two things I remember best:</p>
<p>(1) there was a photo of my uncle wiith President Nixon on their wall. My father used to drape his handkerchief over it when we visited them so his “children would not be traumatized.”</p>
<p>(2) My aunt got drunk one Thanksgiving and claimed that she could still do the “flying splits” – a trick she had mastered as a HS cheerleader. She proceeded to jump up from the table, and leap off the step into the step-down family room and land in the splits! </p>
<p>Let’s just say when you haven’t done that trick in 35-40 years, it is not so easy. She wound up in the emergency room…</p>
<p>I just got an email from DS suggesting it would be nice if “all” the kids and their spouses/sig others, and a friend, visited at the same time. That would be 8 kids under my roof total! </p>
<p>At least in the winter you don’t really need a 2nd fridge. Just put the milk in the nearest snowdrift. OTOH, nobody can sleep on the deck. :D</p>
<p>SBMom–now I’m on the floor LOL. The visual image!</p>
<p>In total hysterics here alone in my house, thank you ALL. I can see the aunt flying through the air, with the wallpaper ducks flying behind her, the sound of peeling flesh…it’s really meant for the wide screen…</p>
<p>then 8 kids under the roof making chaos. Nothing like those Hallmark cards, “home for the holidays…” Send the kids around to wallpaper all our houses? OH NO!!!</p>
<p>ROTFLMAO (if you need the translation, just post, we’re open to newbies at SA, right?)</p>
<p>At least we just paid big bucks to have the sewer line fixed once and for all. Can you imagine having no working toilets? :eek:</p>
<p>Yes, Mommusic, before they circulate to redecorate all our houses, we want them pre-pottied.</p>
<p>We laught hysterically at avocado green and sunflower yellow, but tastes change. </p>
<p>I’ve been eyeing some of my woodwork (thin, cheap, pine stained “walnut”) and wondering if it would look better painted white. Years from now, (many, many years)…at the estate sale…young people will be rolling their eyes at the thought of painted woodwork and calculating how much it would cost to restore the natural beauty of the ca.1982 fake walnut woodwork. :D</p>
<p>Or who knows, woodwork will be aluminum, or concrete, or mylar.</p>
<p>^^^Yes and all that seagrass will be ripped out…</p>
<p>
No no, mommusic. You are not properly marketing your designer asset. It is not “fake”. It is “100% authentic simulated wood grain.” A feature in oh-so-many tasteful homes, awaiting one of us arriving for the rescue.</p>
<p>Actually, it sounds as if yours is actually made of wood. Just with a nice dye job :p. Your home must have had all the Upgrades.</p>
<p>My parents’ house has wallpaper in the hallway bathroom that looks just like pot leaves. (The builder installed it before they bought the place.) Mom and Dad were absolutely horrified when my brother and I (who were in HS then) pointed this out. Thirty years later, it’s still “the pot room.” Noone can bear pulling down that paper.</p>
<p>My grandmother called her sofa a davenport (wth?) and covered everything, including the rugs, with plastic. She also had floral arrangements with colored water.</p>
<p>DH and I looked at a house that had black metallic wallpaper in the bedroom and furniture that can only be described as vintage Star Trek (the original series). The real estate agent said the guy had just gotten divorced. If I had to sleep on board the Enterprise every night, I might consider that grounds, too! 
We saw another house that had orange and metallic velveteen paisley wallpaper in the bathroom. AGH!!! What were these people thinking???</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Counting Down, you’ve answered your own question! Re-read your post and think of that bathroom…</p>
<p>I am sorry I am late getting started with this. Upon our move-in to our c.1978 house we found a kitchen with dark brown cabinets and bright orange countertops. Only missing Travolta dancing thereon. And the house I grew up in also had that fantastic orange & brown shag carpet in my brothers’ bedroom. I had a lovely bright red shag with white wallpaper with red flocking.</p>
<p>We bought a house from a couple who was divorcing. He was a builder and he had built this house to fit all of his “needs”, etc. In general, it was a great house—well built, finished with leftover “parts”, especially the finished basement…there were italian slate tiles leading back to the crawlspace. It had the most dysfunctional kitchen - ever…definitely designed by a man. It’s like he designed it, and then realized he’d forgotten to put in a refrigerator. The refrigerator was IN THE HALL, outside the kitchen. (we later put in new countertops, and nuked the desk in the kitchen to make way for a sub-zero refrigerator). And then…there was the bathroom in the basement. There was a working vintage Chicago pay phone, and a working urinal. I always threatened to buy a condom machine for the wall to finish off the decorating scheme. Didn’t have to wonder too much what caused THAT divorce!</p>
<p>oooh. momof3—flocked wallpaper!!! Cool.</p>
<p>“orange and metallic velveteen paisley wallpaper”</p>
<p>Countingdown, you win the prize.</p>