Best You Can Buy My Great Grandma's House

Found out the other day (from my sister, who heard from my grandma) that my great-grandmother's house is up for sale.  No one in the family has owned it since either the 90s or early 00s, but seeing the house's fancy website full of professional super wide angle photos brings back a lot of memories.  Aside from the outside being a different color and the floors and some of the kitchen being new, it's the same old place.  Lots of little details bringing back lots of little memories, I spent a lot of time in this house from age 2 to 8 with plenty of visits after.

Front of the house.  Never used this door much, we usually came in through the back.

One Halloween when I was really young I was scared beyond consolation by a trick or treater that came to the door dressed as a Green Bean.  It had been a long night.

Right off the entry way there's this room, I'm sure the realtor will tell you it's a bedroom but I think we can all tell that it's Great Grandpa's office.  Picture a large desk, the scent of a great leaning and swiveling leather chair, a spring loaded address book, swords, tapestries, photographs and stones and you're beginning to see the most intriguing room my childhood knew.

The living room/dining room.  Learned a lot of Bible stories from Great Grandma in here, celebrated some of her birthdays and holidays at her long dining room table with all my unruly cousins once removed, played with porcelain figurines I shouldn't have, laid across a long and shiny couch, investigated the dragon chair, waited for my parents to come pick me up. 

A different angle.  I remember those glass etchings fondly, the mirror with the golden veins running through it.

The other dining room?  One time Kristen and I were sitting in here while Great Grandma was eating bread dipped in milk . . . she told us, as she ate, "this is called bread and milk."  Ate carrots here, other vegetables, too.

The kitchen.  Quite updated, the cabinets might be original.  This was a place where pink apple sauce and tapioca pudding were made.

There's this door from the kitchen to the living room/dining room.  The sort of thing you're not supposed to play with, the sort of thing that begs to be played with.

The rooms that haven't changed one bit at all?  The bathrooms.

The hallway, note the built in stereo system.

On one of my last visits to Grandma's house, just before starting college, I went through Great Grandma's records (lots of Burl Ives) and fiddled with it.

Backyard.  There used to be a fountain in the middle of that lawn.  And the lawn doesn't seem to be getting the upkeep it used to.  The grass is that sort of tight, nappy grass.  The sort that feels really good under bare feet.  The stone of the patio feels very good underfoot as well.  There's an Avocado tree back here, that's something the brochure doesn't tell you. 

Another thing the brochure doesn't tell you?  That the Father of the Bride house is across the street.

And here's the aforementioned back.  This is where you park when you visit Grandma's.  This is where you wonder if anyone has the key to the back gate.