To continue last week’s discussion of changes in furniture trends: Ann Weber says one piece of furniture that has disappeared from modern homes is the telephone table.
“In the ’40s we had a telephone table in the hallway … ,” she said in an email. “The table had a shelf below the top surface. That’s where the phone book was kept.”
Hardly a surprise, you say. Who needs a telephone table, when there’s no home telephone?
Ah, but you miss a step or two. In many homes, that phone moved to the wall in the kitchen, eliminating the need for the table long before the landline phone itself began to disappear. Weber says she’s remembering a time before (colored!) wall phones became popular.
As she hints, technology is often the catalyst, and technology has a way of doubling back on itself. Just ask the furniture makers who scrambled to make TV armoires bigger and bigger, then wider instead of deeper – only to see TVs be mounted on walls.
Is it just me, or does the modern entertainment cabinet sitting below that wall-mounted screen look an awful lot like the huge console television sets some of us grew up with?
I remember floor fans. They sat in the middle of rooms, sort of like centerpieces. Some were really stylish. Then came air conditioning.
Those old fans disappeared from the floor – and moved all the way to the ceiling. A bedroom or great room without a ceiling fan feels naked. Some are pretty stylish.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Design your own home tour
The Parade of Homes website is up and running – featuring a new tool that lets you design your own free tour – and the list of featured homes is growing.
“We have more than 60 homes now … and I’ve sold (admission to) five or six builders in the last week,” said Diane Virkler of the Home Builders Association of Charlotte. The tour will grow as the dates near.
To design your personal tour, visit the site and click on the pictures of the new model homes you’d like to see. A few more clicks and the “My Tour” feature produces a map and directions. The tour is free and self-guided. It runs May 17-June 10. Hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays.
Details: ParadeCharlotte.com or paradeofhomescharlotte.com.
