Recently, the house I grew up in went up for sale including pictures. I noticed a lot of changes to the house in the 26 years since I was last there but a lot of the feel was still there. One of the bigger things I noticed was how did so many people live in such a small place?
There were six people in a three bedroom house with one bathroom. The house was about 1200 square feet with two stories and windows that would freeze when the north wind of the winter hit them. I noticed that the windows were replaced along with things like the furnace, water heater and a few other updates. Gone was the jello green of the walls, the rugs instead of carpet, the flimsy basement windows which needed to be glass blocked long ago and the paint on the woodwork of the buffet.
Still though, six people in a house with one bathroom and three bedrooms caused a bit of a privacy issue but back then, privacy wasn’t an issue unless you talked to my older brother.
If you look at the houses of today, 1200 square feet is tiny by comparison. My brothers laugh at how small the house we grew up in actually was compared to their houses today. I remember when Dayna and I bought our last house, the square footage was almost 1500 with only two bedrooms and at least two bathrooms. It was just us so the size wasn’t a problem.
The house I grew up in had a backyard for playing, a basketball hoop for playing basketball and ultimately, my father would “flood the backyard” in the winter so we could attempt skating. Overall, not a bad experience. We played baseball, football and ran around in the street always yelling “car” when a vehicle turned onto the street.
My father taught me from the beginning that when I turn a car on a street like the one I grew up on, always have your foot over the brake pedal and if you see a ball going into the street, stop the car because chances were good that a kid was right behind.
Four seasons of Midwest weather including kids, playing ball, shoveling snow, cutting grass and everything else that comes with the territory. Was interesting when it came time to take showers.