Oh my...I think you just described how our old home looked like when we moved out of it about 5 years ago (I think that's how long it was). I believe that it, too, was built back in the 60s, so I suppose that was just the style. However, when we moved in -- okay, when my parents moved in (I wasn't born at the time), we didn't change anything because it would have costed a fair bit. The only thing that was changed was the fence, which we repainted from the oh-so-ugly alternating black and white boards to a decent red color.

Anyhow, I still remember how the house looked on the inside, because I lived in it so long. Though I never really thought that it was that bad though because, well, it was what I was used to. Looking back though... I sort of agree with your assesment of the design. Our living room had that same olive green shag carpet, as did the hallways. We had brown walls and a beige ceiling too. And yes, the kitchen had the brown and urine yellow linoleum too, as well as a bit of dark orange mixed in with it. And I believe that even when I was living there and was used to it I thought that it was pretty ugly. The fireplace, too, was as you described -- brown bricks (to go with the brown walls I suppose).

Other things that I remember....the carpet in my room was very bright (almost florescent I'd say) orange shag carpert, and the carpet in my brother's room was very bright yellow. We still have the bright yellow chairs that went in my brother's room, but they're downstairs now and we don't use them because they don't go with this house at ALL. Oh, and I remember that all the toilets were a dull yellow too, and had that same linolium flooring that covered the kitchen floor (aka The Really Ugly One).

The only part of the house that looked comparable to more modern houses was the basement, because it was unfinished at the time and my dad finished it himself. The walls were white, and there was a fairly nice carpet in the rather large 'TV room' (Well, large considering how small the TV was). Other places in the basement was convered in linolium flooring, but it wasn't the same ugly stuff that covered the kitchen. It was more of a white-ish and offwhite-ish thing with a few subtle patterns in them. I spent a lot of time in the basement (Though that could have been due to the fact that we had a playroom down there :-).

Anyhow, back to the older part of the house... it would appear that this actually WAS the style of houses back then. And, well, I will say that it's certainly more colorful then the interior of most houses now....though right now, I'd say that I prefer my offwhite-walled, white-carpeted room to my brown-walled, florescent orange-carpeted room. But who knows, maybe in a few dozen years olive green shag living room carpets, brown walls, and orange/yellow bedroom carpets will come back into fashion.

-Ka"and maybe horrendously ugly brown and urine yellow linolium will come back into fashion too"z!