Redecorating a Bedroom in the 1960s

This has been a rough couple of years.  I was blessed with long lived relatives.  I know that there are so many people that cannot say that.  All of my grandparents lived well into their 80s at least.  My paternal grandfather lived until he was 91 and my maternal grandmother reached the age of 100.  But apparently, eventually, we do die.   Last year both of my parents passed away within six months of each other. I was fortunate to have them as long as I did.  The other cataclysmic event was that I was in charge of selling my parents' home of almost sixty years -- the home where I grew up.  So many memories.  It was a tearful excavation of memories.

In the garage in a gray metal filing cabinet, I found a Pittsburgh Paints Decorating Guide which is pictured above.  When I was around thirteen, I started bugging my parents about redoing my bedroom. I had a purple bedroom with purple and white curtains and I wanted a change. After all, I was a teenager!  So as a birthday gift, my father and I went to Pittsburgh Paints on SW 59th in Oklahoma City.  He let me choose wallpaper for one wall and then a new color of paint for the remaining three walls.   At the top of this post is a picture of my bedroom revamped.  The painted walls were a creamy yellow and the wallpaper was a floral of yellows, browns and oranges.  The curtains were a golden brown.  I loved that bedroom.  My mother and I took the two purple shag throw rugs that were on my hardwood floors and we bought Rit orange dye and dyed those rugs a brownish orange.  Oh, that made a mess in the washing machine.

Outside that curtained window was . . . and still is . . . a beautiful deep red crape myrtle.  If I close my eyes, I can still hear "Cherish" playing on my clock radio while I'm doing my homework. The DJ on KOMA is saying, "How many listeners want to hear "Cherish" one more time?"  (It was played three times in a row that day!!)   My windows are opened -- there was no central air conditioning -- and I can hear the neighbor boys calling to one another, car doors closing as the fathers come home from work, and my mother saying, "Debbie, dinner's ready."