Ghost of Future Past- What We Thought Our Homes Would Be Like In the Future

Monsanto’s 1957 House of the Future

This exposition house from Monsanto in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland predicted everything made from plastic. And, boy were they correct! Given enough time, it no longer looked like the future, but looked like the present. Melamine dishes, vinyl flooring, and central air with keypad

are just a few of the many innovations that have become totally standard for us today. Ultrasonic dishwashers and adjustable bathroom sinks: less so. If you never got to see this in person, watch the video to see what it was like inside this futuristic house set in 1986.

In some ways, we haven’t yet achieved the scientific advances that would make these products possible. You also have to wonder how hard they would make your life if they broke or malfunctioned. The idea of being locked out of your own appliances is unsettling at best. But, along with these great new technologies, we assumed that scientists would have made our technology extremely reliable and high quality in the future. How little we knew back then about how computers would be made in the future!

Check out these gorgeous photos of the futuristic 1964 World’s Fair in New York »