"Busy" is the word that comes to mind, yes.

But get hep to the glass-block wall - which extends down to the usually-filthy under-sink area - and the enormous clock built right into the wall. Who needs pictures, when you have a big timepiece reminding you to sit down, turn on the radio, and listen to your favorite serial while smoking a Chesterfield? Isn't modern life grand?

Really, it was. Except for the chairs. "At first glance, those armchairs at the right seem slightly daffy, but really they are altogether useful and space-saving. Busy young moderns will rate them pretty smart."

Busy young moderns were apparently in hopeless thrall to the whims of interior designers back then, too.