A chat with my 70 year old neighbor about his 1970s shag carpet

He said he and his wife installed it themselves in their first house in Phoenix, using nothing but a box cutter, a knee kicker he borrowed from a guy at the hardware store, and a case of beer. Said the seams were 'creative' but it held for fifteen years. It made me realize we get so hung up on the perfect tools and methods now that we forget people just got it done. Anyone else have an old timer story that makes you laugh at how we overthink things?

3 comments

3 Comments

finleyk872mo ago

That's a great story, but Phoenix in the 70s with shag carpet sounds like a nightmare. That stuff held heat like crazy. My grandpa in Tucson had the same thing and said his AC bill was insane. They got it done, sure, but sometimes the old way just created a different kind of problem.

ruby5612mo ago

So did your grandpa ever rip out the carpet or did he just suffer through the heat and high bills? I always wonder if people back then even noticed stuff like that, or if they just accepted it as normal.

casey_barnes18d ago

Bet your grandpa noticed, people back then weren't dumb, they just didn't have the internet to complain about everything. My old man had shag in his living room in the 80s and he swore it was like walking on a giant hairball. They knew it was bad, but ripping it out meant doing it yourself or paying a guy, and both options stunk. Plus back then everyone just put blinds up and cranked the AC, no one thought about insulation or window films yet. So yeah they noticed, but they also figured that's just how houses worked.