Well, people, we made it to Friday! The weekend is SO. CLOSE. While going through the jump drive with all our family photos on it, in the interest of choosing some snaps from the over four thousand pictures my dear old dad has digitized, I came across some I had never seen before of the house I live in!
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My parents were married in 1982, and bought the house I currently rent from them in 1984. The proud first time home owners apparently took a copious amount of photos of the interior. When I kidded my mom about it, she insisted they were "for insurance purposes". I still think it was because they were so pleased with their first real home. And I would have been, too!
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Does this dining table and chairs set look familiar? It's STILL the perfect size for this kitchenette eating area.
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My parents painted these knotty pine kitchen cabinets in the early nineties', and honestly, I think it was for the best. You know I am knotty pine lover to the core, but the combination of the dark stain on these panels with the already "intimate" size of the room makes the kitchen seem even smaller. Please note my mom's enormous collection of frog-related ceramics. She once told me, when I asked about why there were so many frog collectibles in boxes in the attic, that she had once, once stated that she thought frogs were cute. Next thing you know, ten years worth of birthdays and Christmases were commemorated with the amphibian's likeness. It reminded me of the Brad Neely cartoon where one of the Professor Brothers' girlfriends said she liked pie ONE TIME and suddenly every present she ever gets forever is pie-themed.
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The same bed in the same place in the back bedroom! It still works really well in the space, except there's an air conditioning vent where the nightstand is (that's about where the Silvertone from Monday's post is now!). My parents put in air conditioning around 1989 (THANK. THE GOOD. LORD) and we took up the carpet shortly after I moved back in 2007. Look at the little bunny figurines on the night stand!
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Last but not least, a picture of me from a little later on down the line, but at the front door of the same house. Check out my sweet licensed Batman t-shirt (which I assume has shorts under it) and pins. I had a Batman cake that same year, I think! I was totally bananas for the old Adam West tv show which was in reruns on Nickelodeon at the time. It's so weird to see myself in rooms I currently inhabit, but as a little gal!
Do you have any of the same furniture in your house that was in your house growing up? Have you or your family ever kept a house multi-generationally "in the family"? Let's talk!
That's all for this week, but I'll see you guys back here on Monday. Have a fabulous weekend! Check you then! :)
Wow, it is just soooo cool that you have photos of the house that you live in now - but when your parents owned it and you were a kid. That's mind blowing provenance right there. I'm dying over your Mom's frog collection. My poor Mom once said she liked pigs and she got pigs for years! I remember her shrieking to me one time "I said that I like pigs! Not that I want them to suffocate me!"
ReplyDeleteHaha, your mom and my mom were both victims of "present stereotyping". I might want ONE pig, but dear Lord!!
DeleteI love that the dining set has made the full revolution back to your kitchen! The frog situation is one that I am always afraid will happen. While one should "never look a gift horse in the mouth," it becomes a problem when you become an inadvertent frog farmer! Cool photos!
ReplyDeleteIt's so funny because my mom said again and again about that set "it will fit PERFECTLY in that space" and for some reason, I didn't believe her! Plus, the weird, gold-and-black Rorschach style vinyl is SO. MUCH CUTER. THAN I REMEMBERED.
DeleteThis is SO COOL. I would kill to have pictures of my house in it's former life (even though they'd obviously be from strangers... still! I found the gold wallpaper and matching gold chair in my dining room, I need to see that room in all it's glory!). I love those knotty pine cabinets, but no judgement on your mama for painting them ;)
ReplyDeleteI wish I had pictures of what the house must have looked like when it was built circa 1959...imagine how different it was then from 1984! Gold wallpaper + gold chair...ugh, my heart is singing a sad song of envy there. I bet it was a beaut!
DeleteHa! I do the same thing! I love looking through the old photos and seeing myself as a kid in the house I live in (my grandparents')! To be able to look at the photo and look over and see the exact corner of the exact room where little ole Doll was standing twenty something years ago is the best feeling in the world! And the furniture as well. I've got photos of me sitting on the living room suit that I currently use...it was in the basement of the house in the 'game room' back then. A lot of my furniture is the same...we sold my grandparents' Mediterranean heavy, dark, '70s bedroom suit, but I still use the bedroom suit that was in my uncle's room when I was little and that was originally my mom's...she bought it when she graduated high school and got her first real job in 1964...along with my other grandmother's pink chaise lounge that I used to play on when I was little. My grandparents' original bedroom suit, that they bought used when they married in 1940 was in 'my bedroom' there when I was growing up and while we got rid of the iron bed, the chest and dresser are now both in my sewing room. The stereo my mom, at twelve years old, sold her piano to buy is still in the same room it was in as long as I can remember, just on the opposite wall. All the good '50s and '60s stuff is still in my house! My parents' house contains all the old, OLD family furniture...like great-great-greats and stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe frog thing made me laugh! My mom's like that. I used to like rabbits when I was little and collected a few here and there. Every bloody gift giving occasion to this day involves a bunny in some fashion. It's kind of cute, but I've got sooooo many of the darn things that I don't know what to do with them. I mean, I like them, but well...you know. Same with food. Don't ever tell a mom that you like something because it will automatically become your favourite and be shoved down your throat at every special occasion dinner! It's just how it works!
I LOVE all the pictures I've seen of your house/your grandparents' house. It's so neat to be able to keep a lot of that stuff in the family, especially with someone who appreciates it as much as you or me!! And I laughed about your mom's inadvertent bunny collection...it just occurred to me though, people knowing I like "old stuff" has certainly worked in my favor more than once! Maybe there's an upside to typecasting when it comes to being the recipient of a gift! :)
DeleteThat is so cool! My parents have kept many things from the time they were a young couple to now. They married in 1981 but had been together since the mid '70s.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with a lot of cupboards, shelves, portraits, figurines, music, and even clothes from the '70s & '80s.
I recently payed my mom a visit and looked through the old photos where I find clocks on the walls that we still have and other things as well! :)
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I love seeing how little has changed and how much has changed in old photos like that. "Hey! That's that same clock!" and such is fun to notice, kind of like an I Spy you can play with your own house!
DeleteI love it. I love to see pics of my home from when I was younger. It's so trippy to look at how many times the carpet has changed or the furniture has been moved around...but there are always some constants like the knotty pine bedroom suite in the guest room or my dads beloved duck decoys. I know a few years ago my dad hauled away to the dump the chair we had in the den for 20+ years. It was huge and leather and sunken in from all the various times we had all piled into it. It may have been ripped and had a mark when my dad used to sit but we were all super sad to see it get replaced
ReplyDeleteOh, I totally feel you there. They got rid of my grandma's horrible 70's, itchy, brown and green plaid type sofa set sometime in the 90's (because it was literally falling apart), and it like to killed my sister and me. "NO! WE LOVE THAT COUCH!" even though the new one was much more comfortable, it wasn't the one we grew up with!
DeleteI still live in the same house I grew up in, we bought it from my dad in 1997. Just finished paying it off too, last month. Yes! I love this house and I was so glad my kids got to grow up in the same house and neighborhood that I did.
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool! I love that you guys kept the house in the family!!
Deleteoh man, i wish i had picture of our house from before we owned it! how cool! I even love looking at picture from when we first moved in and how much it has changed (we used to have much less stuff, i can hardly believe it. ha!)
ReplyDeleteour dinette set belonged to travis' grandmother, and our mid century bedroom set was my grandma's when she was a teen!
I never realized how much stuff in my house was actually from my family until i started pointing things out to someone when I was taking them on a "tour" of the house. I guess because none of my inheirited items are couches, I don't think about them much :p (Lisa + vintage couches = truLUV)
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