Originally Posted By LVBelle The other day my brother rode his bike past the home we grew up in in Scottsdale, Arizona. He took a couple of pictures that show just how badly it's been kept up. Looking at them made me cry (doesn't take much these days) but I was also able to see the house as it was back then. Since then, my family has been sharing our memories of that old house which has been so bittersweet for me. Is your childhood home still standing? Is it like you remember it at all? What do you remember most about it?
Originally Posted By wonderingalice My childhood home in Torrance, CA is thriving... Something about that neighborhood - wow! When we moved to Las Vegas in 1969, my parents sold the home for around $20,000. Since then, it's grown "up" to a two-story home - they kept the same architectural style and colors - white with canary yellow. It's absolutely beautiful... and now worth around $750,000+! Amazing! That's a beach community in California, however, and the entire neighborhood has stayed lovely. Mr. Alice and I will be headed that way for a visit in November - I can't wait! My former Las Vegas home is another story. It was brand new when we moved in - the area was just being built. The grammar school my brother attended and my eventual high school were borth brand new. But there's something about this town... Everything old just gets OLD. Homeowners move out and into newer, bigger, better parts of town and rent the old places to new occupants - upkeep falls by the wayside. It's a real shame. I keep wondering what will happen when there's no place left to build 'new.'
Originally Posted By dr jones My brother and I still own the house we were born (not litterally) and grew up in in Sacramento. Our parents are both deceased and everything went to us. Neither of us could imagine selling or renting the house to strangers, so my brother lives in it now.(i'm in SF). It's a nice feeling to be able go home and still have that house with all the great memories from childhood. Like trips to Disneyland!
Originally Posted By alexbook I spent part of my childhood living in "the Projects" (public housing) in Culver City. I went past the complex where we lived a few years ago and was appalled at how horrible it looked. Made me wonder if it looked that bad when I was a kid and I just never noticed, or if it's really gone downhill over the years. My teen years were in a house my mom bought in Santa Monica, which she still lives in. When I visit there, I have the opposite reaction--the neighborhood has been gentrified almost beyond recognition.
Originally Posted By Daannzzz I first lived in Mountain View for 5 years though I don't rememebr tons about that house it is still there and the neighborhood while old is still in decent shape with many homes beign very nicely remodeled. We moved to Cupertino in 1961 into a brand new home. We left there in 1971. That house is still there and still looks the same. It is still the same pastel mint green that it was. They have never painted it. Many of the shrubs are still there. The houses in that neighborhood are starting to get remodeled nicely as well. Mom and Dad bought that house for $19,000.00. They are selling for $850,000.00 now.
Originally Posted By Ursula My mom still lives in my childhood home and I can visit my old bedroom any time I want!
Originally Posted By LuLu Alex, is that the building off La Cienega? I used to own a home up the hill a bit in that neighborhood and *loved* it! As far as childhood homes... haven't been in the same state for decades! Did find some cool mementos when cleaning out my folks hosue tho - old floorplans, marketing brochures and photos. I'm weird, I *love* floorplans!
Originally Posted By threeundertwo Found it on zillow.com. The rickety old 1909 farmhouse I grew up in seems to have been remodeled in 2003 and is now worth 460k. Not bad for the area. zillow.com is interesting, if you haven't seen it before. Go ahead, look up all your friends houses. . .
Originally Posted By JazzCat I live about a mile away from my childhood home. After my mom passed away, my sister and her son lived in it for about 3 1/2 years. He went off to college and she moved to the Seattle area. Her co-worker wanted to buy it but there were alot of repairs to do. He bought it for around $69,000. It WAS a really nice Craftsman style built in 1915 that had always been painted white (the true style of a Craftsman) with dark green trim. It was so nice with a big front yard and a beautiful front porch. Now it's painted a horrible mustard yellow color with green and burgundy trim. They've fenced the yard with some gawd-awful fencing and have a big pond in the front. There are wells and knick-knacks all over the front yard. It's despicable and makes me sad to see it.
Originally Posted By avromark My first childhood home was a century home (time flies now it's a century and a quarter), it was red brick, had a lovely huge octagonal verandah on the front, huge back yard, was walking distance to an old Gothic Library (no longer), two story with an old double car detached garage (the type with the wood doors that open like a normal swing door, no garage door opener), the basement was about 4 feet tall, my parents replaced the octopus furnace so it was basically used as a cellar. My room was in the "tower" portion. The areas gone downhill, for a number of years it was divided into a triplex, but I am happy to say last year I toured it where the current owners were turning it back into a single family home. My second childhood home was the typical 80's two story on a hillside lot, so our basement was basically out of the ground, yellow brick, I loved it because all the bedrooms were big. Granted at the time the bathroom colours (Powder room was powder blue, ensuite was olive green and the family bath for me and my siblings were mustard. Thankfully those colours were replaced about 10 years in with gray (dates it into the early 90's huh). Although my room wasn't in the tower, it was cool because I had a wall-to-wall mirrored closet. While we lived there it was still 80's, (track lighting galore, bedrooms had 6 head track lights, remember those flourescent ceilings in the kitchen? Had it. My dad put his foot down though, so our kitchen was brown tiles with knotty pine cabinets (hard to find now). My dad wanted birds eye maple but we couldn't afford it. I really miss that house. In my High School years my parents bought another new house, it wasn't nearly as nice as the previous, the workmanship on it was shoddy (2 story, but instead of all brick it was brick vinyl). I was glad when my parents sold that after a short time and bought a house on the right side of the tracks. When it came time for me to purchase, I made sure I didn't buy a house on the wrong side of the tracks, even though it meant waiting until mid 20's.
Originally Posted By avromark LuLu - you'd hate the floorplan of my home, my family room is on the second floor above my garage, my dining room and living rooms are a great room, my ensuite isn't very big at all heh.
Originally Posted By officerminnie My first childhood home was built in 1957. May parents bought it new when I was a baby. I lived there until I was 9 years old, then moved to a couple of other nice homes within a few miles over the years (my dad was retired USAF and his "second career" was a custom home contractor, so we could always afford a decent home). I now live just around the corner from that first childhood home. I drive past it every day and can see it from my back yard. It still looks the same, but has been painted a different color. I have been by the other homes from my childhood and all of them, amazingly, have been kept up very well. The house we lived in during my high school/college years is near my mom's current home. It was a big (4,200 sq. ft.) daylight basement with an authentic wooden phone booth in the basement for the "kids phone". That was the coolest thing in the whole house (well, maybe the crazy daisy orange, yellow, and lime green wall paper in my bedroom was cooler).
Originally Posted By alexbook LuLu: No, it's this: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/mvtwb" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/mvtwb</a>
Originally Posted By LuLu ^^At least you could say you were Marina-adjacent avro, I love great rooms, one of the things I liked about my Culver City house was the 40' living/dining room with a fireplace in the middle. The bedrooms and baths were really small, but it was a great house for entertaining! What is an ensuite? Master BR?
Originally Posted By LuLu >>zillow.com<< That site is a lot of fun! It seems pretty inaccurate in my neighborhood tho. All the homes, including mine, show as the original 1400sf-ish size. Mine was added on to the year it was built, I'm sure others have additions too. When I input my upgrades, it gives me a value over $800K. In my dreams!
Originally Posted By avromark Personally i'd rather have a living room, dining room and main floor family room. I'd love a den but oh well. Ensuite is master bedroom bathroom, mines only a whirlpool, I don't have airjets (I want my parents current home). One thing I don't miss about the teenage childhood house is the ignorant agressive neighbours, road ragers, and loud all night partiers. Not many people are sharingtheir childhood homes. my pitiful excuse for a starter home: <a href="http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=4369142&a=32176471&p=74342866" target="_blank">http://albums.photo.epson.com/ j/ViewPhoto?u=4369142&a=32176471&p=74342866</a>
Originally Posted By Tiggirl I don't have a childhood "home"... I was born in a trailer (yes... IN the trailer. My mom wanted a home birth) and then because my dad was a "pioneer" pastor (he would go start churches and stay for a year or two to get them up and running and then leave the new pastor in charge) we moved a lot into many different apartments. I moved at least once a year (and sometimes more often) until I was about 15 when my parents divorced. My dad finally rented a house and stayed there for 2 years before moving again. I guess you could say that was my childhood home. If that's the case it was very tiny and my brother and I stoped to look at it when I visited Seattle last time and it was very run down... just like it was when we lived there. LOL! ~Beth
Originally Posted By hopemax Well, my parents just sold my childhood home. Just sold as in, "in was supposed to close yesterday, but there was a problem with the title company paperwork and now it is supposed to close today." It's a very strange feeling. And I'm not sure when I will ever see it again. There is no reason to back to my home town, now that my parents aren't there.
Originally Posted By LacyBelle My parents sold my childhood home in March of this year. It is a very strange feeling, indeed.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb I put my neighborhood in zillow, the one I grew up in and have returned to, the houses all ranged from 880k to 1.2 mil. These are 3 and 4 bedroom track houses built in the early '60s and origionally sold for under 20k. A house I know to have graffiti on it's outside wall was listed at over a mil. California real estate is crazy.
