Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Basement Rooms, Circa 1950

I found this 1950 booklet from the Armstrong Cork Company in (of all places!) our basement - at the bottom of a cupboard:

It's full of ideas to make over your basement into useful rooms, using flooring from Armstrong. Perhaps you would enjoy a "Desert Hideaway":

Or maybe a Party Room - looks pretty good to me:

What a fabulous Laundry Room this one is!

And this one looks good, too:

Every busy, active family can use a Rumpus Room - you may need to add a TV and/or a computer in this day and age, though:
"A Den Of His Own" - yep, here it is - the 1950's version of the Man Cave:

Hope you enjoyed these vintage rooms, courtesy of Armstrong. I love their old ads; I've shown you quite a few of them before, as you may recall.

7 comments:

Helen said...

How fun. I remember the term "rumpus" room. Many of the items in the photos we had - and used. The washer with the little window, they were popular long before today's front loaders. The 'davenport' (remember those) out of nagahide, I think it was called (a vinyl before vinyl). We didn't have a basement, but we probably bought a lot of those goods from our local Sears.

Zootsuitmama said...

In our neck of the woods, we called them "rec rooms". All the cool people had them (not us!) Love the pix! My neighbors had a rec room and an attached bomb shelter! We'd go in there to play board games!

Tina Dawn said...

I am so proud of you that you could reach the bottom of a cupboard in your basement! That is a step in the right direction all right. I would love to have a basement. Great examples, wonderful floors. Love T

yosemite faith said...

i would love a laundry room like that with my sewing stuff there also. of course i would like almost any of these basements.

Mick said...

I love the nautical star! and the room in the very first picture!

Paul Duca said...

The house I grew up in was built around this time, and they put in a rec room downstairs--floor tile (by whom I don't know), knotty pine paneling, built-in shelving, and a space I believe was meant to put a hi-fi turntable.

Note that the man of 1950 had to settle for a mural on the wall of "his" room in place of a big-screen TV.

Rae - Say It Aint So said...

i love that compass floor in the nautical room!