apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Hey, my dining table is the same two-leaf 1920s trestle table on which I ate dinner when I was seven! I've more-or-less abandoned the family penchant for mahogany, but my parents went MCM in their bedroom a few years before it became de rigueur.

The Dana-inspired re-toweling of the bathroom ended up with the dominant color being the same bright green that my parents favored for bathrooms circa 1972. Apparently I liked that color.

Shortly after asking my parents if I could have the 2 Danish modern chairs they no longer use, I realized that my living room was a subconscious re-creation of theirs circa 1977.

Not a chance. My mother (bless her heart) faux paints walls, uses lots of mauves and blues and burgundies, and wallpaper borders. Ducks and cats make an appearance more than once.

HOWEVER: I apparently like ranch houses. I grew up in a single level ranch (with a basement) with three bedrooms. I now live in a single level ranch with three bedrooms, even though I looked at all sorts of houses.

Yes, but my parents had imbeccable style. I didn't realize this until I had grown up and I started to compare pictures of my childhood with pictures of other people's. They even had stylish taste in clothes, and I'm thankful that they never gave me a mullet or dressed me in polyester.

Maybe the answer is as simple as this--people imitate their parents if their parents had good style. At least on this blog, where *everyone* is stylish.

I've got my parents tendancy to keep furniture I don't need...that "just in case" mentality. As I grow older and going through my own life's lessons, I've learned that we all hold on to needless items, whether it be for nostalgia or status or for no apparent reason. I'm slowly getting rid of the junk that has cluttered my life. I feel free! Thank you, eBay and Craigslist!!!!

And thank you Apartment Therapy, for opening my eyes to living with simplicity and organization!

Nope, the only thing that I was handed down by my parents (material-wise) were their cameras. :P

I grew up mostly in the country, in a home that resembled shows like Roseanne. I can't imagine getting any further away from that decor style or lifestyle - in more ways than you can imagine.

:)

This question made me laugh. My style couldn't be any more different from my parents'! My mother looks at my modern furniture and wonders aloud where I came from. Interestingly though, my brother and sister's style seems to be pretty close to what we grew up with.

overstuffed white leather sectionals, brass accents, vaguely oriental woodworking... i couldn't be more different from my parents, and thank goodness! i did grow up in vegas though, and i fully blame the area's influence on their questionable interior choices.

When your parents have plaid junk from Sears, it's easy to spurn it. How about when they have real Shaker (not the catalogue) and real Victoriana? I feel lucky to have inherited my family treasures, but I know that if they had left me mass-produced junk from Levitz, I wouldn't be sentimental.

I've only inherited my parent's sense of frugality and economy. They've had the same ugly bedroom set since 1970...

So, as I make large purchases, I ask myself if the style is something I want to have for 30+ years. Buying for the LONG TERM makes me more willing to consider HIGH end stuff in a style I truly LOVE instead of cheaping out or even going mid to high grade (Crate and Barrel) for things that I like - but dont LOOOVE.

I've definitely picked up my mother's love of bold color, but that is pretty much where it ends. When she has 6 different colors, I just want 2. And my mother spends lots of money on large, colorful oil paintings, which I love but cannot afford (yet). Growing up in a home with "real" art makes my stinky posters pale in comparison.

Well, let's just say that I appreciate their style more now than in the past. It's sort of like "the older I get the smarter my parents get."

growing up our house was stuffed. my mother wanted everything our neighbour had. she wanted to have everything what others had. I am on the other end of the spectrum

Not so much my parents as my GRANDparents! Until recently, my living room was completely outfitted with inherited pieces from my grandfather's house. And though we've streamlined the lot--leaving us with a coffee table and end table--I've basically recreated my grandfather's living room circa 1964. (If I could find someone to help me lug the awesome--and awesomely heavy--tweed SLEEPER I have stored in my mother-in-laws basement into my second floor brownstone digs, I'd complete the vision.)

my parents' taste runs more to the La-Z-Boy and rooster-themed-kitchen than mine. fortunately.

though my hypothetical future kids will probably claim that my taste runs more to the silk shantung pillows and feminist art than theirs...

I grew up like Rob. We had (still have the couch) red plaid furniture from Sears. It looked fine in that era, and the hardwood held up to our jumping and somersaulting. But we also had/have real Victoriana and simpler hand-constructed pieces.

Yes, I have my parents style, or at least a reasonable facsimile (they have much more money than I do). My childhood home coul have passed for a much hipper M.O.M.A with all of the art they had. My mom, an artist, designed the whole house - a mix of French Regency and Postmodernity.

Until recently, my mom was stuck with all the old, heavy faux-mahogany hand-me-down furniture that my great-grandparents bought for my grandparents when they first started out. My grandparents had handed them over early in their marriage when they downsized to a smaller house. They were very well made, but often clunky -- I remember that one summer the wood on one of the drawers got extra shut and I couldn't get back into it until my mom noticed and did some sort of mom-voodoo to it that fall. It was full of clothes I hadn't worn for three months. It was all "good stuff" from the mid-40s, but very traditional and flowery, and we added all sorts of that 80s Laura Ashley/Ralph Lauren crapola to it...

When they moved, my mom + dad passed all of that stuff along to my cousins, who love that sort of thing. Now neither my mom, sister or I have a freeking floral print anywhere in our houses. All three of us have different modern styles, but my couch could fit into the decor in either of their houses and be just fine. In part, decor styles have moved on, but I think all three of us were just so tired of that look...

My parent's house had an asian influence. Growing up I hated anything asian. Now I can't get enough of it. There was a lamp in the LV that was an asian woman made of stone. Hated it! Now my brother has it and I'd kill for that lamp. They also have a beautiful sideboard with louver front doors and a thick slate top. Sadly, my brother has dibs on that, too. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gives up on it since it'll have to be shipped to Santa Barbara.

My mom is a seamstress, so everything is hand-made, which isn't always so good. She has a lot of quilt-themed things (pillows, bedspreads, afghans, placemats, chair cushions etc.)but at least she has done away with the duck theme in the kitchen. Bright colors scare my mom, so I grew up in beige-walls-with-borders land. I have painted every room in my place a different bright/rich color. The only thing I have choice over yet is the hand-me-down pieces from my parents and in-laws that I cant yet afford my choice of.

I think my style is closer to my paternal grandparents. I inherited and refinished the teak Jans Risom coffee table my grandfather had in the lobby of his ad agency. I have the aluminum Chinese opium pipe he, according to my grandmother, "just brought home one day." Then there are the 1960s modern glass bottles my grandfather had, the Mexican and Guatemalan masks they collected on their travels, and the headboard from a youth bed that I use for a guest bed. I also live in a house that was built around the time they were born (1918) about two miles from my grandmother's childhood house.

My parents' (or my correctly my mom's) style seems to draw more on Martha Stewart and Country Living magazine. I tend more toward Dwell. My parents also have a tendency to want to have lots of stuff. I'm more drawn to economy and simplicity (and sustainability.) Maybe it's a reaction to all the stuff I grew up with.

My parents had amazing style. From the antibellum mansion I grew up in, in the Garden district of New Orleans to the apartment in Manhattan, they had amazing style and I'm proud to say they are my inspiration. My mother was a writer and my father a musician and they handed down many a fine eye for the artistic and well designed.

Oh my GOD, NO. My parents live to torment me. They want a new floor? They get wall to wall, hideous, carpeting in high traffic areas. They want to update the look of the living room? They throw out a beautiful, near-antique, wonderfully minimalist modernist kind-of-settee (provenance unknown, but it was GORGEOUS and my favourite thing ever as a child. So hot.) Their house is a beautiful rancher. It is all windows and views and spectacular. But everything about it is made excruciatingly boring by their lack of a sense of style. All their furniture and accessories have been the same since the 1970s, when they purchased furniture as university students who had no sense of style back then, either. The only cool things about the house came from its previous owners, who left a great Saarinen table.

I have fantasies about owning their house and having it live up to its potential. I will rip out the wall-to-wall, now stained through years of use. I will rip up the parquet that has been unglued since the late 1980s, but still not replaced (and my parents are moderately wealthy. They could afford to, but they're lazy, and they just have never cared about style.) I will take out the kitchen vinyl with its wheat-sheaf pattern and cackle over a bonfire made of ugly faux-wood panelling that is throughout the downstairs of their split-level. I will cut down at least three trees blocking their view in their overgrown yard and toss their carcasses on their flames (normally I love trees, but if your yard doesn't get any sun, there are too many). I will send them pictures and finally they will understand that they should have done all of that in 1985 when they bought the place. CHRIST.

In some ways. I have mahogany furniture and oriental rugs, but I don't share their taste in art. Floral studies and ships, ships and more ships.

I could have understood it had my dad ever been in the Navy or if we'd lived by the sea or something.

My dad's design sense was entirely recliner-centric. My mom and my sister both tend toward Early Better Homes & Garden style that I find stifling. But when I got dragged along to an Ethan Allen store when my sister and her husband were couch-shopping, I began exacting revenge by turning my grade-school-age nephew into an Italian furniture snob with the help of shelter magazines! I am sure he will grow up to have a proper space-age bachelor pad.

My mother liked to decorate but her style or lack of (bless her heart) is very different from mine. She likes peach - a lot. I think it's a flash back to the seventies. She was also very much a clutterer and still is and I think that has influenced my interest in living in an uncluttered, cozy and stylish home. My husband, by the way, grew up in Beligum in mansions and for some reason he likes chandeliers and stuff, though we live in a small two-bedroom walk up in Weehawken. I think he'd love to recreate his home and he always gives a go head on midcentury furniture pieces i like because it reminds him of back home.He has no idea that the pieces are like really really stylish. He just remembers home.

that time is way wrong. its 7:47 a.m.

Aaaah! This resonates with me.

My first two apartments were almost reenactments of my parents' and grandparents' homes, all Danish teak. In fact, I did not know there WAS any other type of furniture until I was about 8 years old and suddenly noticed that my best friend's house had a "sitting room" with antiquey looking furniture that was never used, and a weird thing called a sectional in the TV room. I still gravitate towards Danish teak, though there is less and less of it in my home today.

Hubby grew up with country style and antiquey looking stuff (I'd never heard of a drysink until I heard his mom refer to the kitchen shelf as that) and he still gravitates towards country style pieces.

I'm happy to say that our joint aesthetic is slowly coming together... in part thanks to this site, and a general increase in our design-consciousness.

In my family it's the other way around.

As my mother has seen me grow and change as far as interior decor goes, she's borrowed ideas. When I was young she had a southwestern theme going on, and now her house is almost all MCM. The only major difference between she and I right now is that I do love some of the newer modern furniture as well, and I don't buy things that I'm not in love with, whereas she will buy almost anything that is mid-century modern.

I too fell in line with the grandparent's sense of style. This seems to happen to those of us whose parents joined the wall paper border style of decor. Is it maybe a time-period style thing?

My former parents-in-law had mid-century modern in their home. It's comfortable, that's for sure. I realize that many you who visit this site love the style and boy, you'd have loved that house.

Funny how when I visit this site, I am so often reminded of my mother-in-law.

Arin - yes! That's exactly what my sister pointed out to me after I acquired a 60s Danish rosewood table. My strategy is to go for what my parents *should've* bought when they were my age, had they not been living on a post-grad student budget: They had excellent taste, but what they bought was sometimes compromised in execution.

tash - the post is probably going thru the LA site so it's 3 hours behind.

ali (2nd one) - I hear ya! My parent's ranch-style house was built in 1955. Not much has changed since then. All the bedrooms are tiny and the main bathroom is PINK! and hasn't been changed at all. It too is teeny tiny. My bathroom here in NYC in my studio apt. is about the same size.

I have redesigned my mother's house in my head a million times just in case I end up living there. (Please god, no!). So has my younger brother. We compare notes on what we would do if we had the cash and a sledge hammer.

"The only cool things about the house came from its previous owners, who left a great Saarinen table."
I bet those people are kicking themselves now!

Hmmm.. let me think.

My mom has style, but we don't always agree. Her furniture is fabulous, but just not what I'm looking for. While she's quite traditional (a mix of Martha Stewart, Country living, Old world style) i prefer modernity (Castiglioni, Saarinen, and a boutique-ish style).

Her mother had some fabulous pieces, one buffet-side board that is now n my mother's home, its simply gorgeous, well made, and is a great memory of gran. I've already claimed that piece for the future (there is a matching table and chairs to go with it as well, but i'm not as in awe of them as i am of the buffet).

My father, on the other hand could not care any less about aesthetics, and his parents were the same, although they did have some nice pieces, a few of which i have in my home. My favorites are a set of retro glassware (and on a side note, the change in glass size, ergo the size of the serving/portion, makes you think as well...).