Recently, I found out that the house I grew up in is for sale. When I say that it is the house I grew up in, I mean I lived there from a new born baby to 20 years old, when I got married. I consider myself lucky to have lived in the same house all those years. Some kids are moved from place to place. I just think that would be so hard.
The realtor for the house is a friend of the family and offered to let us take a look inside. My parents sold the house shortly after I got married, so we were excited to have the chance to walk though it.
The house is only around 2700 square feet and my parents had 13 children. I think I would go completely nuts!!! My mother is a saint! They bought the house for around $26,000.
I called my siblings that live here in town, my parents, and our dear friend Fran (she lived next door to us all those years). We all met out at the house to walk through it together. It was a total RIOT! There are definitely things that have changed, but some things were still exactly the same. The old key holder in the coat closet was still there. The "blue room" carpet was STILL there...oh my! (That carpet was ugly back then.) My mom had written some information in the breaker box, and it was still there. It was just fun to see some of the old light fixtures, outlets, etc.
Gorgeous old blue carpet.
Thermostat...just the way I remember it.
The thing that shocked me the most, is how small the house and yard actually are. That yard used to seem like it went on for miles. I think that your perspective changes on things like that when you get older.
We laughed about all the things we remember doing there. One of the things that we liked to do was play "train". Here is my lengthy explanation of this crazy, dangerous "game". If you went down the hall, cut through my parents bedroom, then through the master bath, you could go through the laundry room, into the kitchen, and back to the hall. It just made a huge square. Well one person was delegated to hold a broom and find a good place to hide. All the kids would run "the square". The person with the broom would hide behind a wall or in a bedroom, and randomly lower the broom right in front of the kids (remember that they are running full speed). That meant that a train was coming (like the long poles that come down to stop cars when a train is approaching) and the kids had to stop. The person holding the broom was constantly switching spots, so you never knew where they would be. I think about that game and how dangerous it was...I laugh, but I would never let my kids do it.
When we were young, we would climb the walls with our hands and feet (in the hall) and bump our heads on the ceiling.
The downstairs fireplace was where we would put on pageants. It also cut a few heads open.
Group picture at the house.
The backyard.
