Wow, what fantastic furniture! The sofa appears to be a fine Duncan Phyfe (note the quality carving on the backrest). The side tables are fairly old as well, and both are mahogany. The lamps also immediately got my attention. They are Sandwich glass coloured overlay lamps (likely blue, red, or possibly green) cut to clear, with composite bases (1870-1880s). Lastly the chairs are also fine and early pieces from the early to late 1800s.

Do I have an overwhelming desire to run to the A&P or Acme for Wonder Bread, Krafts's Real Mayonnaise and a quarter pound of Olive Loaf?

Somebody help me please and at least pass the habenaro salsa.

Could be any day of the week for those who have regular family devotions. The chances that Dad is not standing there holding the camera are about zero.

[Actually there is zero chance that Dad took this picture, unless he was a newspaper photographer. - Dave]

oops.

The "dorky" shoes referred to by sjmills would be Desert Boots. They were hugely popular with my pre-teen crowd in the early '60s, albeit we shunned the sole-separating-from-the-uppers look.

Combine this with the women's hair styles and those cat's-eye glasses (which are creepily similar to my mom's), I'd put this photo closer to 1963 or '64.

To be fair, those sets of volumes are probably encyclopedias. That's definitely Britannica on the bottom shelf. The others could be collections of Great Books, but I suspect lesser encycs.
This was towards the end of the golden age of reference books, when Britannica was a Real Source. I used to spend Study Hall hours "hypertexting" from one article to another, ending up with half a dozen or more open on the table at once.
Yeah, I was geek then, too...

appear to be wearing that staple of adolescent male attire of the day, de-hemmed trousers. Why buy new pants when you can lengthen the present pair following a growth spurt? I had a closet full of these. Indeed, my Irish mother taught me how to slice the seams with a razor blade so I could conduct the operation myself.

And Dad is on the golf course.

I gotta think you aren't reading your books if you park a sofa in front of the bookcase!

Circa 1960, huh? Eight years later, Mom (the one in the middle with the swoopy eyeglass frames), would move in with her girlfriend. The daughters (twins?) were taken into custody in Woodstock, NY after they were found wandering down the road, barefoot, deep into their third day of tripping on LSD. The young fellow on the right was the President of a segregated fraternity, and was volunteering for the George Wallace for President Campaign. And his younger brother on the left was soliciting for the Hare Krishnas on the streets of San Francisco. Dad? He can usually be found on a bar stool at the local Amvets.

I was probably about the same age as the boy seated and I remember the exact shoes he is wearing. His [older] brother is wearing what was called desert boots and the style lasted until early '70s.

What bespeaks miles about norms applied to families and their children are the pictures on the wall with the father (looking so heavenly and pleased) with his sons' pictures. Assuming the two younger women sitting on the couch are sisters to the boys, they are relegated to a secondary role in the sibling hierarchy. Such was the times.

I hope that, for he sake of equity, there are studio photos of Mom and the girls on another wall in the room.

JeffK's Theorem: The odds that you actually read your books are inversely proportional to the number of near-identical spines on your bookshelf.

The boy on the left has some well worn tenny runners (not sure - don't quite look like PF Flyers because of the toe cap), while the other boy has some dorky things.

Nothing like that ever went on in our living room, but we did have our own set of ceramic figurines in 18th century style, acquired around 1955. They seem to have been something of A Thing at the time.

What a grand "davenport" those people are sitting on! I wonder where one could purchase such a piece of art today.