Generations

I'm home for the weekend, and having just helped my friend move, as well as starting the process of packing up for the summer, I have houses/apartments on the mind.

I was looking at an old picture on our wall, of me and my grandpa, and started thinking about the styles and decorative feels of the various houses I knew growing up.

My Grandparents
My grandparents' homes always had a distinctive "old" feeling to them. The furniture was noticeably older in style than my house, and lots of the technology was older too. There was a lot of wooden furniture, and even the TV had wooden paneling. The stove timer in one had actual rotating dials, as opposed to a digital read out. There are black & white portraits all over the place, and other "old" things.

My Parents
The house I grew up in always seemed modern to me, because it's how I grew up. But looking at it now, there are distinct things I can pick out. We have a lot of wooden furniture too, but our appliances/electronics are more modernized - the typical blacks, whites, and silvers can be seen. There's more color around, especially in pictures on the walls. My mom was also into "themed" rooms, to an extent - our bathroom had an underwater feel to it, and we actually had giant stuffed fish hanging from the ceiling at one point. Our downstairs bathroom still has a wilderness feel to it.

My Room
By my room, I mean my room(s) while living at UCLA. While I have little control over the main furniture, you can already see how my apartment in the future will differ from the house I grew up in. I have a lot of sleek black items - it's very tech based. My HDTV, on it's stand, with the Xbox and games all right there. Rather than a large wooden "entertainment center", my stuff is more compact. The brown wood has been traded out for black painted wood (you can see that in my picture frames, for example).

I hadn't really thought about it until now, but my room is definitely more "modern' than my parents' home. I'd almost call it minimalist in some ways, and while that's partially just due to my personal taste, I think that's kind of indicative of people my age.

It's really interesting to think about how each of these places captures the 'era' (so-to-speak) of the inhabitants. All three have VERY different feels, and it's kind of cool.