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Tell Us About Your Most Memorable Home!
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I just moved into my first apartment with my pretend-a-hubby of 7 years. Its an awesome little place with big open windows you can sit on. Our bedroom has a pool view and two walk in closets. Books adorn everything and gives it real charm. Our welcome mat says "Live Life Simply". Aloe Vera plants give our new home life. Its such a lovely little home and I cant wait to get out of work to sit by the window with a glass of Cab and a good book.
My favorite house wasn't technically my home, but my grandparents home where I spent every weekend and almost every summer as a child. My grandparents lived in a trailer for 18 months while they built the house. My grandpa ("papa" to me) built it with the help of many friends and contacts, and it was a very personalized home. There were stained glass windows that my uncle had made, wood from an old family barn in Oregon, many reclaimed materials from other antique homes and furnished with antique furniture my grandmother spent lots of time acquiring. I had my own room complete with antique brass bed and a handmade crochet quilt my grandma had made. My favorite part was the laundry chute that went from my grandparents bathroom down to the laundry room. And I loved sliding down the banister, but I could only get away with that when no one was looking!! My brother and I also had our own playhouse in the form of an old metal shed that they let us paint ourselves and then filled with fun things such as an antique desk and typewriter. It really was the most awesome home ever!!
The first place I lived on my own was part of a student Co-Operative house (we owned and ran the house ourselves, shared a kitchen, the bathrooms, and the living areas). All of the rooms were supposed to be double occupancy but after I signed the lease for the room, the other girl backed out and all the people who came to move into the house after that were boys. So, I ended up with my own room. It had a window unit (during a 45 day straight 100+ degree 80% humidity stretch of a Texas summer), there were occasional roaches and lizards, there was a loft where the mattresses were, none of the furniture matched (I dumpster dove and traded with others in the house to acquire an electic mix that suited me), but the windows were almost floor-to-ceiling, there were hardwood floors, and it was mine. I loved that place. :)=h=
By far my most memorable home is the one I am in now. It is the first house my husband and I owned together and it is the home we are raising our son. It is such a wonderful feeling that this will be where my son's first memories come from, and I just love being a home owner!
My most memorable home is actually two, the two I grew up in simultaneously. My parents divorced when I was 1 1/2. I lived between the two of them. My mother in the city and my dad 15 minutes away in the country. They both live in the same houses to this day and going home for me is always a wonderful and memorable experience.
I've never moved. Ever. But I guess "my" favorite home was my dorm in college in... Senior year. I had my own room but shared a suite with my best friend. We had a ton of fun, constantly yelling through the doorways, acting so much younger than we were. Right outside my window there was a lowered roof that we could climb on and we went out there and watched meteor showers, spied on the boy's dorm... generally made nuisances of ourselves.They were tiny rooms but we managed to fit a lot of people in there. And when it was just the two of us, it felt like I'd lived with her for years because we never got in each other's way and somehow our schedules never caused any conflict for the bathroom.
It was a great time. So when I think of a memorable home, other than my own and my grandmother's, which go without saying, this is what I think of.
I treasure lovely memories of the house I spent my holidays in. It was my grandparent's old house in a tiny village. It had a huge garden with a porch, what used to be henhauses, and a magnolia tree with a swing where I spent the days reading. My grandpa had the basement filled up with stuff from the farm his family had had and old books and magazines that belonged to my mum when she was a teenager. I read Little Women there.Some years ago my aunt moved there and remodeled everything, even the garden. Whenever I go there now it just doesn't feel right. I miss the wildness of the old garden and the way the house smelled.
My most memorable home is the house I grew up in. It was on a quiet, tree-lined street, charming as hell, and I had my own room. I haven't had my own room since we sold it!
Aside from my childhood home, my current apartment because I've flipped the switch on expectations. My bed is in the living room, my craft space and TV with DVD/VCR is in the bedroom, and I use the kitchen (besides cooking) to crochet and listen to NPR. I wake up to seeing Lake Michigan every morning (when there's not fog), and my art is arranged in a way that makes it accessible for me. And I feel completely open to changing it when I am so inspired!
My most memorable home is where I lived from 6th grade through high school. I lived with my Mom and brother in my uncle and Grandma's house. My Grandma died before we moved and we were very close so I'm happy to have lived with her as long as we did.
My most memorable home was the first house my family ever owned. We lived there when I was in pre-school before my parents divorced and off and on until fourth grade while my parents debated on who would live in the house. It was a tacky shade of green, almost a minty color. My sister and I had the upstairs bedrooms and I remember we had a closet that went to both rooms and we would hide in it. There was a small room in the basement under the dining room where you had to climb a small ladder to get into it and there were nails poking down through the boards. You had to be very careful and stay low to avoid the nails. We pretended it was our dungeon. Looking back, the house was not the best I have ever seen, but it is where we were our happiest. Before things went sour and everyone still talked and loved eachother. My daughter's teacher owns it now, but my brother and I swear to this day that one of us will own it again one day. I hope we are right.
Mine is my current home. We moved to MD last summer and I just love our home. We own it and it fits our personalities perfectly. We also live in a great neighborhood, so even though our house gets messy, it just means that people have been over to visit and that it's really been lived in!
The house I grew up in is memorable for a lot of reasons people always like the house they grow up in. But it was also important to me, because we lived next door to my great-grandmother and we could just walk from our backyards to go see her.
My most memorable home is the first one my family lived in when I was four. As a child we would water down our huge front porch with a hose and create our very own slip and slide, playing for hours on end throughout the summer. Even though it was a rental, the owners had horses out back in the pasture and our job was to bring them into the corral and feed them everyday. I loved that job. We had to be careful, because the horses weren't supposed to be that tame. Often, after being scolded by my mother for doing something inappropriate, I would go hide under the belly of one of the horses. No one would approach because they didn't want to scare the horse and get me trampled. I would reach up and pet the horse's belly while he would reach his head down and back to watch me.
My sister and I would often sit and eat unsweetened Kool-Aid by licking our fingers and sticking it in the packages. She also taught me how to ride a two wheeled bike by tying a rope from the back of her bike to my handle bars and pulling me along behind her.
I drove back a few months ago, a distance several hours from my own home to show my children where I had lived as a little girl. The house was tiny, maybe 800 square feet, and the porch wasn't more than ten feet long. The pasture was a dirt field, and the horses were gone. It wasn't the house I remembered as a little girl. In fact, thinking back, it wasn't the house that made it so memorable at all. It was the home.
My most memorable home is my parents' current home. We moved in July 2001 when I was fourteen years old, and after having lived in a too-small apartment, it was a relief to have privacy and breathing room. It is what I picture when I imagine "home"; even if I lived here and there throughout college and after, I know that no matter what, I can always come back to Georgia and be welcomed with open arms.
It was built as soon as my parents could afford it, and we moved in when I was three.It's a log cabin in New Hampshire with a big yard and so many memories. Planting flowers with Mom in the spring, adventures in the woods with my brothers in the summer, jumping in leaf piles with my little sister in the fall, and reading, cuddled up by a cozy fire in the winter- just me and my favorite book (and maybe a pug).
To a stranger it may just be a pretty house, but thanks to piles and piles of beautiful memories, it's a home to me.
My most memorable home is the home my husband and I live in now. It has a story to it, we bought it at the same time we were getting married and closed a month before the wedding. My husband let me choose the place since he was living in another city, my bridesmaid who just got her real estate license was our agent...it's not our forever home but we will remember it forever because it means so much to us.
Ever since I moved out of my childhood home, it's been a struggle to stay any longer than two to three years in one place. However, before I moved in my childhood home, I lived in a small apartment in Queens. I don't remember much of the place because we moved when I was two, but I remember a long hallway. It was dark and the walls were made of wood paneling. Our apartment was on the left and I remember it being open. It was the only light in the hallway. As you walk in, the sun poured in from the windows. The weather was mild and the breeze was warm that day.I remember walking in and seeing a large kitchen island in the middle of the room. It had an old Ritz Crackers tin on the counter. That was all I could see. It almost felt like a dream, but somehow I feel like it was reality. After all the moves and all the different memories I've created in my childhood home, I will always remember the beauty of the light in that small apartment and the tin of crackers on a table too tall for me to reach.
My most memorable "home" was the home I created out of what I can only describe as a Dickensian basement flat in a delapidated 18th C. row house around the corner from Portobello Rd. We had a stairway going nowhere (up to the next fl., but blocked with a wall) which we used as a book shelf - and the only hot water was in the bath - which we had to carry in basins to the kitchen to wash dishes. It was damp & the only comfortable rm. was the kitchen - so I lived in there - repainted brightly in red white & blue - not becaz we were Americans, but becaz that was the best budget paint selection! - We put in a little pub frig & our landlord thought it odd that we had that & not a TV! We cleared out the back garden in the spring & found a gigantic bone of some sort - we never did figure that one out - but we did feel funny, as the garden backed up on an old-fashioned funeral parlor!
My most memorable home was a ranch house my family lived in during my early years of high school, in Fargo, ND. I lived in the basement next to a storage space that I dubbed "The Dungeon". It was supposed to be a rec room so had no closet but it did have a large pipe coming out of the ceiling that had a plastic fabric wrapped around it to make it look like a tree. The door (or rather a lack of a door) was only about a foot wide. The upstairs was all orange or green shag carpeting and the downstairs was old-school green linoleum. The wall paper was probably the most memorable. Downstairs was papered with cartoon-ish scenes of teens listening to records, kissing at the drive-in, and talking on the phone. I don't think that house had been redecorated since 1965. The upstairs paper ranged from a furry golden fleur de lis pattern, to shiny iridescent butterflies, to geishas and pagodas, depending on the room. To be honest the first time I saw the house I cried; I think I was overwhelmed by shag and shiny/furry wallpaper. But after living there I really grew to love all it's quirks. I think my favorite thing was the giant electric organ that came with the house. I mean, really, what other instrument would work with all that green shag? Maybe a sitar...
My most memorable home is a small farm house in northern Minnessota that I lived in for 4 months during the summer. It is the home of my Fiance's parents. It is my modst memorable home because it was in the country (30 minute drive from town) and I would spend all my time outside. Even mowing the lawn was fun.
Mine is my home now, it has a large yard and oodles of flowering trees, bushes, gardens and plenty of lounging spots. It is my favorite and most peaceful place in the world.
My most memorable home is actually a trailer.I grew up in what my mom called "The Sticks," and we lived in a trailer with an addition on the front. We were surrounded by plenty of yard, woods with trails in them, and a "crick" down the barely-paved road. Overall, it was a great place to play as a child.
It wasn't my home, but my grandfather's old house has been the most memorable place in my life. He and my dad, plus my two uncles, built that house themselves (hence all the design flaws and unsteady foundation). Still, the place has meant alot to me: it's outlasted every holiday memory, and now both my grandmother, who passed away in 2000, and my grandfather, who passed away last week. I got to visit it a few months ago and it'll be torn down by the new owners next fall. That house is what family means to me- I cherish every memory made there.
Perhaps it wasn't what some would consider a home, but the most memorable home I've ever had are the cottages my family and I used to rent for a week every August on Lake Erie.Eugobode Cottages was hardly a glamorous place, but it was old enough to have its own charm. Furnished with secondhand (and probably third- and fourthhand) everything when I was a kid in the Eighties, the place hearkened back to the Sixties when Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH was experiencing its first renaissance. The cottages boasted cracked plaster walls, malfunctioning plumbing, and a regular infestation of ants. On every refrigerator was posted a list of rules (written by typewriter when I was a kid, but progressing to laser reprinted by adulthood) like 'please do not mash bugs on wall' and usually boasting at least five typographical errors.
The cottages surrounded a common yard that housed a jungle gym and long out-of-date barbecues, as well as some lovely old shade trees. Though the view of the lake was gorgeous from the (always patched, often torn) screened porches, and the lawn did spill right down onto its own 'private beach,' the highlight of the place was this old wooden bench glider. The thing was (and still is) kind of a hazard - usually there's at least one board loose or completely missing, the paint was always peeling, and the thing squawks like hell if you put more than one person on it. But it flies pretty high given the right pilot, and I've never met a soul on it that didn't love the thing. I made lots of friends on that swing and even shared a few kisses as a teenager.
My most memorable house would have to be the house I lived in my senior year of college. It was a cute enough house for four girls in college, but we had some other pesky roommates as well. It became infested with mice! The shoddy carpentry left perfect holes for the little critters to live in. Their favorite nest seemed to be the hole in the wall between my bedroom and the kitchen. It was the coziest, most comfortable home, but it was surely memorable!
Most definitely the first apartment I ever lived in. It was my sophomore year of college right out of the dorms and I moved into a 2 bedroom campus-run apartment with three other girls that I met in the dorms. Seemed like a great idea because it was super cheap and all bills paid, but downside was only one shower...for all four of us. We're all great friends to this day, five years later, but by the end of the year we all wanted to kill each other...not to mention the carpet was forest green.
Where we live now in Hawaii is our most memorable. Last year, we'd been living in San Diego. Husband got a new job, quit old job. New job turned out to be indirectly linked to a Madoff-like crook who's now in prison. New job lost. Husband got a job in, of all places, Hawaii. We sold everything and moved here with our 3 kids.
It's the smallest place we've lived. Ever, even when he was in the Army. Less than 1000 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths. On a bus route. Not by the beach. Yet it's a reminder that our material possessions are ephemeral, that we're survivors, and that our family home is wherever we happen to land.
My most memorable home was when I stayed in with a host family in Osaka, Japan. The contrast to the home I have lived in for all my life is huge, I live in a big, one storey house in country Australia. Their whole apartment was smaller than the study in our house. Their apartment was on the 8th floor, way taller than any building in my small town. My memories there were amazing. I was the eldest child there, used to being the youngest child by far. I got to play games and goof off with my host sisters, and we understood each other even through a big language barrier. My host mum always cooked, lovely smells wafting through the apartment. She made me a packed lunch everyday, (my mum never ever makes me lunch or anything).It is the most memorable as it was the most hospitable and homey place I have been, even though it was so different and far away from my home.
My most memorable home is the second home I lived in as a child. I moved in when I was three and my mother still lives there today. Now that I have moved away from home, turning onto the street and into my mom's driveway brings back a flood of memories. My father passed away last year and now my childhood home means even more to me because it holds so many memories of my father. Even though my room is no longer "mine" and I don't spend every day there, this home is still a place where I changed and grew. This house never fails to make me feel at "home."
ModCloth's Shelf Life
Books mentioned in this topic
Little Women (other topics)No Place Like Home: A Memoir in 39 Apartments (other topics)
To enter our giveaway, leave us a comment in the discussion titled, “Tell Us About Your Most Memorable Home!” If you tell us about your favorite apartment, house, or home, by 11:59 p.m. on June 30th, you’ll be entered to win a free copy of No Place Like Home!