What's something modern you won't miss when it becomes obsolete?

[Shangas]

Dreadlocks have been around for centuries.

 

[BigFitz]

Or even better --

This is the best suggestion so far. I don't really hate the lawn mower, just the time spent using one feels like such a waste of time, which of course, it is.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I've seen hard water etch a door. Seriously eat through the plexi-glass so that the hard water stains are actually dug into the door. However, I think it might be easier to keep clean on "real" glass doors rather than anything coated with plastic. I know fiberglass and acrylic is difficult to clean with hard water, so perhaps it is the plexiglass then that has me hating shower doors? (don't know if all shower doors are plexiglass?) Next house there is no plastic going in any shower. I'd rather have to bathe outside with a bucket in the snow right next to the road in the middle of the day than have plastic anyplace near the shower.

I've never seen plexiglass shower doors, mine have always been glass, so perhaps that's exacerbating your problems. If that were my choice, I think I'd take the bucket too.

 

[vitanola]

I have granite counters (and a granite bar, granite window sills, granite bookcases, granite fireplace hearth...) not only because it's gorgeous, but I can sanitize it with a blowtorch, if I wanted. It's pretty indestructible. The fireplace is limestone and the floors are travertine. Can you tell I love natural stone?

Don't need a microwave oven, either, do you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html

I would never in a million years have taken you for a "stoner", Mr. Hawk.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Don't need a microwave oven, either, do you?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html

I would never in a million years have taken you for a "stoner", Mr. Hawk.

Yes, there is an infinitesimal risk that if you lie naked on your counter tops 24 hours a day for 100 years, you will get the same amount of radiation as from walking 30 feet to your car in the sunlight. But the risk of granite counters, about 1/1000th the risk of taking a shower, is something I'm personally will to take over the risks associated with plastic (linoleum or Formica) counter tops. Not to mention, you can turn my counter tips into my tombstone when the time comes.

 

[Dragon Soldier]

I wouldn't be worried about counter tops, but living in an area where granite is prevalent or especially, mined. Can make a significant difference to your life-dose.

Not looking both ways when crossing the street is statistically rather more dangerous than either.

 

[sheeplady]

I've never seen plexiglass shower doors, mine have always been glass, so perhaps that's exacerbating your problems. If that were my choice, I think I'd take the bucket too.

Yeah... they're old plexiglass too, from the 1960s/ 1970s. The shower surround (tile, cast iron enameled tub, fixtures) is absolutely beautiful and remarkably still stylish and easy to clean, even the white grout which absolutely still sparkles (that may have been regrouted, but not in the past 15 years I'd bet). It doesn't make any sense to me to put one product in a shower that isn't as durable as the rest. Never a shower door in my future if I can help it. I'm convinced they are evil. I've had enough of this plexiglass one to last a lifetime. Also nothing plastic or cultured in any bathroom shower. I'd put up a curtain and a rod but they drilled lots of holes for the frame into the tile, and the tile is beautiful like I said.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And yet more...

Internet phrases injected into everyday conversation.

Drivers who consider every stoplight an opportunity to show off the manliness of their engines, even if they're driving an SUV with a load of groceries and a basket full of washing in the back.

People who force their cats to eat a vegan diet. (Such people will themselves hopefully be killed and eaten by said cats.)

Dramatic theme music for breaking news bulletins.

"Torx" screwdrivers

Those bulk bags of Popsicles that force you to buy all the disgusting flavors just to get a couple of root beer ones.

People who throw their heads back and touch your shoulder when they laugh.

Stick-figure families on back windshields. Where's the ex-con brother-in-law?

Lead-free solder

Children's cereal-box characters redesigned to look like wild-eyed maniacs

Parents who drug their children until they also look like wild-eyed maniacs.

People who say "shaa" instead of "sure"

"Extreme" bicyclists who make sure you notice they're wearing their weird pedal shoes in the grocery store.

Women's magazines that assume we have only two things on our minds: consumption and copulation.

That dumb dumb dumb dumb Prius song.

People who carry their dogs in a milk crate strapped to the back of a motorcycle.

Sixty-year-olds who still wear college sweatshirts.

People who wear L. L. Bean boots but never actually go into the woods

Plastic spoons given with Hoodsie cups

People who believe everything they read on the Internet with the exception of NASA documentation of the moon landings.

"New American Cuisine"

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Forgive my ignorance but what is new American cuisine?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Forgive my ignorance but what is new American cuisine?

See Tofu Burgers

 

[LizzieMaine]

Two dollars worth of ingredients sauteed in thirty dollars worth of attitude.

 

[vitanola]

the risks associated with plastic (linoleum or Formica) counter tops. Not to mention, you can turn my counter tips into my tombstone when the time comes.

Was gently kidding you there, OM.

Linoleum, by the way, is not a synthetic plastic. It is composed of a resin (linseed oil boiled with a siccative), a filler (ground cork), and a backing ( sturdy, tightly woven jute). The resin and filler are calandered together and then applied to the jute backing under great pressure.

The experience of building an even two dozen kitchens in the past twenty years has led to the conclusion that the unfitted kitchens of our great-grandmothers are probably the most practical and economical workspaces. Note that modrn production (restaurant) kitchens are quite generally unfitted.

That said, I am just now building a fully fitted kitchen for the 1941 Cape owned by a friend of mine. I've covered the walls with salvaged Vitrolite panels in a sort of pinkish cream shade. The cabinets are Youngstown Steel units which are currently at the auto body shop, being enameled in a soft white. The counter tops will be covered with a deep red marbled linoleum with stainless edging and the floors with a deep blue Jaspe linoleum, with a feature strip ( narrow border) of pale pink. The range is one of those hilarious cantilevered Electro Chef units, which I actually built up out of two ranges, so that the unit is fully seventy six inches wide and is fitted with eight electric burners and two ovens. I have not yet located just the right refrigerator, but may end up using one of those very late General Electric Monitor Top machines with the full cabinets. I'd actually prefer a 1941 vintage GE Deluxe flat-top, but am having difficulty locating a really good resorable example.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Was gently kidding you there, OM.

Linoleum, by the way, is not a synthetic plastic. It is composed of a resin (linseed oil boiled with a siccative), a filler (ground cork), and a backing ( sturdy, tightly woven jute). The resin and filler are calandered together and then applied to the jute backing under great pressure.

True linoleum is, but since the 1930's, "linoleum" is PVC. It's rare to see real Linoleum.

 

[John in Covina]

True linoleum is, but since the 1930's, "linoleum" is PVC. It's rare to see real Linoleum.

A great tongue twister from the Sonny Fox show - Aluminum Linoleum. Note for the English the US says aluminum as a rhyming word for linoleum!

 

[vitanola]

True linoleum is, but since the 1930's, "linoleum" is PVC. It's rare to see real Linoleum.

No. Linoleum is Linoleum. Vinyl is vinyl. "Vinyl Linoleum" is rather akin to "Edison Victrola" or "Scott Kleenex", is it not?

Note that vinyl flooring was only introduced to the market in the post-war period, and did not dominate the market until the 1960's.

 

[Gregg Axley]

No. Linoleum is Linoleum. Vinyl is vinyl. "Vinyl Linoleum" is rather akin to "Edison Victrola" or "Scott Kleenex", is it not?

Note that vinyl flooring was only introduced to the market in the post-war period, and did not dominate the market until the 1960's.

And I still have the 70's design.
One day I'll update it, but since time and money never meet on the same day, it won't be soon.

 

[HudsonHawk]

No. Linoleum is Linoleum. Vinyl is vinyl. "Vinyl Linoleum" is rather akin to "Edison Victrola" or "Scott Kleenex", is it not?

Note that vinyl flooring was only introduced to the market in the post-war period, and did not dominate the market until the 1960's.

"Linoleum" is not trademarked. It's really the first beand name that went generic. Most linoleum sold in the last 70 years is PVC. You can still get the real stuff, but what most people have is the plastic kind.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Vinyl flooring wasn't widely sold until the postwar era -- and it wasn't until the sixties that it displaced asphalt tile as the flooring material of choice for kitchens. Asphalt required far less upkeep than linoleum, and is more resistant to fading than vinyl -- but vinyl was cheaper to buy and easier for weekend handymen to install.

I'll be glad when vinyl floors become obsolete. I have vinyl on my bathroom floor, where it gets direct sunlight from a window, and what was once white is now a dismal shade of yellow in the spot where the sun hits. Asphalt never did that.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I'll be glad when vinyl floors become obsolete. I have vinyl on my bathroom floor, where it gets direct sunlight from a window, and what was once white is now a dismal shade of yellow in the spot where the sun hits. Asphalt never did that.

Which is why every square inch of my kitchen and bathrooms is covered in natural travertine stone. The rest of the house is covered in real wood. I don't have a stich of carpet, nor a sliver of wallpaper, anywhere in my house, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever do again.

Growing up, our house was wall to wall "terrazzo". I use that term liberally, as the floor was terrazzo in the academic sense of having been poured in place, but was essentially just polished concrete. It wasn't exactly "decorative".

 

[earl]

Which is why every square inch of my kitchen and bathrooms is covered in natural travertine stone. The rest of the house is covered in real wood. I don't have a stich of carpet, nor a sliver of wallpaper, anywhere in my house, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever do again.

Growing up, our house was wall to wall "terrazzo". I use that term liberally, as the floor was terrazzo in the academic sense of having been poured in place, but was essentially just polished concrete. It wasn't exactly "decorative".

Our first floor is all stone tile or wood flooring. It's a 113 year-old Victorian. Second floor is carpeted. Only linoleum is in the bathrooms. Earl