Ugly House Photos

Design Through the Decades - part 70

Part 2 of home décor in the 1960s looks at Phoenix homes from 1965-1969.

Green carpet and floral print couches highlight this 1966 Phoenix home.

The master bedroom of this same 1966 Phoenix home.

Light colors were standard in most parts of homes.  But dark colors & wood paneling in family rooms created a warm cozy feel as seen at this 1965 Phoenix home.

Orange chairs.  Stereo console that doubles as a padded bench.  Painting of a cityscape.  All common design elements from the 1960s.  This is a 1967 Phoenix home.

Orange plush carpet with thick padding and a wall mural are featured in this 1967 Scottsdale home.

This 1969 Phoenix home has orange velour chairs, yellow drapes, hanging lamp, & cityscape painting.  Darker wood furniture began to appear in the late 1960s.

A 1969 Phoenix home with billboard-sized photograph mural.

Green leather chairs and wood paneling were hot ticket items for 1960s interior design.

One last photo of 1960s home décor.

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Design Through the Decades - part 69

Interior design and home décor in the 1960s in Phoenix homes did not change too much from the 1950s until the last half of the 1960s.  In Part 1 of 1960s home décor, we’ll look at Phoenix homes from 1960-1964.

Marble top tables, ornate lamp bases with large lampshades, muted green heavy drapes with valance, sculpted carpet, and chairs not large sofas defined the 1960s.

Similar design theme in this 1960 Phoenix home.

Hanging lights were popular in the 1960s as were tiered tables.  This is another 1960 Phoenix home.

Here’s a 1960 home from Scottsdale, Arizona with 1960s furniture. The carpeting, however, is actually from the early 2000s, believe it or not.

Sculpted carpeting in the 1960s usually had thick underpads which gave a soft cushion to your feet.  Stereo equipment became furniture by concealing the equipment into a cabinet.  Tree trunks with fake leaves were popular design accents in the 1960s.  This is a 1961 Phoenix home.

Heavier patterned sofas and couches gained favor with Phoenicians in the 1960s as seen at this 1962 home.

This is a 1964 home in Sun City, Arizona.  Couches with bottom ruffles were common.  God’s eye artwork could be found on many walls in Phoenix homes.

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Can’t confirm the age of the furniture and decorations here, but they sure scream 1960s.  The macramé hanging planter, the orange chair, the sculpted carpet, the step-down living room.  It’s gotta be from the 1960s. [Update:  I’ve been informed from a reader that the planter and chair are from the 1970s.]

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Design Through the Decades - part 65

Roofing is the last category of Phoenix housing design we’ll examine before our big finale of home décor next week.

The 1950s - Roofing:

The typical Phoenix home in the 1950s was a ranch style home with asphalt shingle roofing.  Some 1950s homes had red tile placed along the ridgeline as seen at this 1950 Phoenix home.

Most ranch style homes had gable roofs.  Gable roofs have vertical sides and half of the roof faces the viewer from the street.  This is a 1954 Phoenix home with a gable roof and asphalt shingles.

If the home had an L-shaped floor plan, it then had a cross gable roof as seen at this 1955 Phoenix home.

Hip style roofs have four sides that all slant inward.  This is a 1950 Phoenix home with a hip style roof and asphalt shingles.

Wood shake roofs were popular with some Phoenix homeowners in the 1950s.

Ralph Haver designed homes in Phoenix had a reverse gable roof style where the viewer cannot see the roof’s sides from the front. These homes also had no attic space due to a low roof pitch.  This Ralph Haver home was built in 1957.

The 1960s - Roofing:

Roofing at Phoenix homes in the 1960s was not much different than the 1950s.  Asphalt shingles were the most common roofing material used in the 1960s.

Cross gable style and hip style roofs were used at many 1960s Phoenix homes, but a gable style roof was the most popular as seen at this 1969 Phoenix home with asphalt shingles.

Wood shake roofs were found at some 1960s homes.  This is a Tempe, Arizona home with a wood shake roof.

A few homes in the 1960s combined a flat roof with wood shake using a roof style known as Mansard style.

Ralph Haver continued to design homes in Phoenix in the 1960s with the low pitch reverse gable roof style.

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Design Through the Decades - part 62

Parking is not the most exciting feature of a home, but its prominence in Phoenix home design has changed over the decades.

The 1950s - Parking:

In the 1950s, the average Phoenix household owned only one car.  Therefore, parking requirements were minimal.  One-car carports were the norm in the 1950s.  And they were attached to the house.  This was a change from the 1920s-1940s where a detached garage in the back yard was common.  Since parking was now a part of the house structure in the 1950s, enclosed garages gave way to open carports.  It was more for convenience than protection; just drive up and park.

Oftentimes, the one-car carport was built close to the edge of the lot.  As parking requirements changed over time, it became impossible for one-car carports to be converted to two-car garages due to lack of space.  Thus, for many of these 1950s Phoenix homes, the one-car carport became functionally obsolete.  Homeowners in the 1980s-2000s did, however, add a side wall and a garage door to convert these carports to one-car garages.  This is a 1953 home.

The problem with converting a carport to a garage was that most 1950s homes had windows facing the carport.  If you enclosed the carport, no natural light came into the house.

There was usually a breezeway from the carport to a storage room and to the back yard in these 1950s homes.

The more expensive homes in the 1950s had two-car carports attached to the house as seen at this 1958 home.

Sometimes you could find a tandem two-car carport like at this 1951 Phoenix home.

The 1960s - Parking:

In the 1960s, parking design did not change significantly from the 1950s.  Carports ruled the day.

Two-car carports became more common in the 1960s as more households owned two cars.

One change in 1960s parking was to put the carport on the side.

Garage parking slowly emerged in the later 1960s.

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Design Through the Decades - part 57

Landscaping of Phoenix homes in the 1960s was a continuation of the 1950s.  Lots of grass lawns and large trees.  Here’s a 1960s home with ash trees out front.

Of course, Aleppo or Eldarica pines were still very popular in the 1960s as seen at this 1966 Phoenix home.

Here’s another tall pine tree at a 1960s Tempe, Arizona home.

Cedar and juniper bushes were all the rage in the 1960s.

Most cedar bushes were trimmed at the trunk to resemble trees.  Another popular 1960s bush was the arborvitae that grew up to 20 feet tall.

Topiary bushes or neatly trimmed bushes were trendy in the 1960s.

Olive trees were found at many Phoenix homes as seen at this 1960 home.  Flowering olive trees have since been banned for sale since the 1990s because of their high pollen levels; fruitless olive trees are sold instead.

There was a shift in landscaping in the 1960s from green grass to rock/gravel and desert plants and/or palm trees.  This 1965 Sun City, Arizona home features Canary Island date palms (aka pineapple palm) and gravel.

Desert landscaping with saguaro cacti out front was low maintenance.  From a 1969 Phoenix home.

A decorative “island” in the yard created a splash in the 1960s.  Common cacti & desert plants in 1960s landscaping were barrel cactus, organ pipe cactus, and ocotillo.  This is a 1969 Phoenix home.

Just like the 1950s, having a citrus tree was a requirement for most homeowners in the 1960s.

Some homeowners planted citrus trees in the front yard like at this 1963 Phoenix home.

Mediterranean fan palms made their debut in the 1960s as seen at this 1969 home.

Oleander bushes used as privacy screens along back yard fences were very common in large 1960s yards.  Grass lawns were standard.

Oleander bushes have white, pink, or red blooms.

Some homeowners in the 1960s landscaped their back yards with river rock.

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Design Through the Decades - part 51

[Because there were not a lot of homes built in the 1950s and 1960s in Phoenix with original pools (not renovated), the photos are not numerous.]

Swimming pool design in the 1950s for Phoenix homes was kept basic.  Usually a rectangular shape.  Back then, diving boards were standard features.  Most pools had “deep ends” from 9-10 feet deep.  Here’s a Phoenix pool from 1953.

Curved lip edges were a common design element, as seen at this 1959 Phoenix home.

Another pool from 1959.

There was not much design change at all in the 1960s.  Swimming pools looked the same as the 1950s.  Here’s a 1962 Phoenix home.

This 1960s pool had a loveseat on the side.

The pool slide appeared in the 1960s and was a big splash with Phoenicians.

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Design Through the Decades - part 46

Lighting styles in Phoenix homes in the 1960s were not that much different than the 1950s.  The hanging lamp was still in style in the 1960s.

How about this 1960s hanging lamp with “candles” inside?

Hanging light globes over the stairway in this 1963 Tempe, Arizona townhouse.

Wagon wheel lights were very popular in the 1960s.

Chandeliers were always in style in the 1960s as seen in this 1966 Phoenix home.

Overhead fluorescent lighting with plastic cover panels made its first appearance in Phoenix homes in the late 1960s (and would continue into the 1980s).  This is a Sun City, Arizona home built in 1969.

Other popular 1960s lighting styles were overhead lighting in bedrooms with a flat glass protector over one or two light bulbs and big table lamps with big tall lampshades.

Pendant lighting was used in homes in the 1950s and into the very early 1960s before fading out of style.  Pendant lighting would reappear in the 2000s.  Here are three national advertisements from 1960.

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Design Through the Decades - part 40

Vinyl tile from the 1950s took too much time to install, so 1960s Phoenix homes took an easier approach.  Flooring options in the 1960s were rolled linoleum, carpet, or stained concrete.

Here’s some lovely linoleum from a 1963 Phoenix home (with original oven & cabinets too).

Linoleum flooring in another 1960s home.

Linoleum in a 1967 Phoenix home.

Carpeting in bold colors was very popular in the 1960s as seen in this 1962 Mesa, Arizona home.

More dark green carpet in another room in the same Mesa home.

Green was a popular color in Phoenix.  Here’s a home from 1967 with classic 1960s drapes.

Properly maintained, carpeting can last for 40 years.

Stained concrete floors feels cool on bare feet in the hot summer months.  Almost all stained floors in Phoenix from the 1940s to the 1970s had this butterscotch brown color.  Many homeowners of older homes opted to remove old carpeting in the 2000s and enjoy the exposed concrete floors.  This floor has been polished; otherwise it would have no sheen.

A national advertisement for carpeting from 1960.

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Design Through the Decades - Part 34

Phoenix homes shared a lot of the same design elements from the 1950s and 1960s, including windows and window coverings.  It was amazing to find photos of original drapes from the 1960s.

Typical windows of the 1960s in Phoenix with lots of window panes.

Decorative wood shutters were very popular in the 1960s.

A boxed protruding window was a distinguishing feature in the 1960s.  This is from a 1960 home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Diamond pattern windows crossed over from the 1950s into the 1960s.  This is a Scottsdale home built in 1960.

Large picture windows in the living room were common as seen in this 1961 Scottsdale home.

Floor-to-ceiling windows were also found in family rooms.  This is a Phoenix home built in 1960.

Bedroom windows, as in the 1950s, were usually placed high on the wall to allow for beds with headboards and tall dressers.  This is a 1962 Phoenix home.

As building materials changed over the decade, some window designs changed too.  Vertical windows are featured in this Litchfield Park, Arizona home from 1967.

Now let’s take a look at window coverings or window treatments of the 1960s in the Phoenix area.  Similar designs were used from the 1950s and 1960s.  Heavy drapery material was common.

From a Scottsdale home from 1960.

It’s a testament to the quality of the materials that they’ve lasted for over 40 years.

From a Scottsdale home built in 1967, pulled back for a dramatic effect.

From a 1960s home in Mesa, Arizona.

Another 1960s Mesa home.

Wood shutters with small slats were very popular in the late 1960s as an alternative to heavy curtains.  This is a 1967 Phoenix home.

Coming Up:  Will window design and curtains change much in the 1970s?

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