If my parents had a mantel, I might be a completely different person.

When you were a kid, did you have a list of weird stuff that you thought were things rich people had?

I did.

I grew up in a lower middle class family.  Emphasis on the lower.  We never really wanted for anything.  Just didn't have many extravagant extras.  I had friends with money.  And after being in their homes and riding in their cars, I made a mental list of things that indicated you had arrived.

A double sink in the kitchen.  I don't know why this seemed rich to me.  But it did.

An attached garage.  I just loved attached garages.

Plastic tube hangers.  Ours were all the wire dry cleaner kind.

Separate pool towels from your everyday towels.  I never had a pool towel until I was 13 and my mom bought us all one for our trip to Florida.  I took our dumb peach and brown bath towels when I went swimming anywhere.  And our towels weren't the big ones.  They were the smaller, barely cover your butt ones.  I hated them.  I loved the beach towel from my mom so much I still have it.  It's raggedy and threadbare and Chris tries to throw it out every time he organizes my underwear drawer.  Yes to both your questions, I keep it in my underwear drawer and yes, he organizes it.

A car with cloth seats.  We had a Chevette for most of my childhood that had vinyl seats.  You stuck to it in the heat of summer.  We got a new Chevette when I was 12 with cloth seats.  I thought I was really living.  In addition to car accessories, power locks and windows.  Funny thing is, my current car has vinyl seats and roll windows and manual locks.

A fireplace with a mantel.  Love a mantel.

Carpet.  We had hard wood floors.  Carpet seemed so extravagant to me.

Funny the things we think indicate wealth.