Nothing sentimental about any house I've lived in, but my grandparents' house I remember the pantry fondly. They took it out and reno'd the kitchen/laundry area back in the 80's, but I still remember walking into the front door straight into the kitchen (still that way now that my cousin owns it), but then if you continued straight past the sink there was a door to a deep (8ft?) narrow (maybe 4ft? less built-in cabinets, counter, open upper shelves on left hand side) pantry with a window on the right.

My great-great-grandparents' house which my other cousin is now reno'ing (built in 1743) had a step up from the kitchen (late 1800's addition?) into the main room (with massive fireplace, beehive oven, though the room is very narrow), just to the right of the kitchen doorway was another small step and a door to tiny knee-knocker steep stairs to back room upstairs. The pantry was accessed through another latched door just past great-grandma's china cabinet and the basement stairs - that too had built-in cabinets/open shelves and a window.

I don't know what my cousin plans on doing with the pantry and "great room" - or the other 2 front "parlors" (with nonfunctioning fireplaces). They've blocked off the stairs since the upper floor can be accessed via the main staircase just inside the front door - they opened up the whole top floor and attic to make cathedral ceilings up there.

My house is 87 years old. I like to think about the history experienced by the people who lived inside these walls.

The original owner was a WWI veteran. I wonder about his return to normal life. I think about his wife walking through the house as it was being built, dreaming about the dishes she would put in the built-in china cabinet and curtains on the windows. (Did she struggle with furniture placement the way I do???) Maybe she had her hair bobbed. She probably wore drop waist dresses. Were her children born in my bedroom? Perhaps they sat in our living room next to the radio listening to the first news of the stock market crash and the beginnings of WWII. (WWII would have been of great interest locally as ships were built just down the road.) Fireside Chats of FDR. V-Day. George Burns and Gracie Allen. The kids in bobbie socks, saddle oxfords, hoop skirts and crewcuts. Elvis Presley. A television added to the living room. Maybe the family considered how to construct a bomb shelter. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. JFK. RFK. Vietnam. The original owner died in the mid 70s and his widow sold the house. The new owner came in and "updated" (aka remuddled). I have to stop thinking about what happened to it at that point because it makes me sad.

Not really sentimental about my house but I am about my town. If and when I move I will miss Main St., the library that use to be the blacksmith years ago. I'll miss the fireworks displayed on every August 8 that I can see on my front porch. I'll miss the drive-In movie down the road and the soda fountain on Main. I'll miss the little streets that can only accomidate two cars if one pulls over to the side.

I will not miss this house with all the problems of a house that was built in 1895.

....Jane

The house where I grew up had a set of pull down stairs which led to the attic. You had to pass by the little chain pull that hangs down any time you went to the bathroom or to any of the bedrooms or laundry room. As kids we got in the habit of hitting that chain with our hand (and a few dangerous attempts with our feet while growing up!)every time we went past. My children also learned this peculiar habit while growing up close to their grandparents. Even now that both my parents are gone and the house is empty they still hit it when we go by to check on the house.

Now we too have a set of pull down attic stairs strategically located in our new house and although the pull is an ugly white string with a white ceramic ball on the end which I could replace and make much shorter. I refuse to do so because they (ages 21 and 17) still hit it each time they pass for the most part, and I hope their children will too one day!

Kat :)

I have lots of sentimental feelings about our almost 120 yr old home. I have neighbors who remember playing in this house when Mr Abbott was still alive. It is fun to hear them talk about the house and Mr and Mrs Abbott. He was the town photographer and when he died his wife disposed of all his materials and equipment. My neighbor, across the street was a little boy at that time. He said he and his Dad follwed the truck to the land fill and were too late to save the items. He was so sorry as his Dad was a photographer and he is now the "town photographer".

I love to walk through the house in the night and think about how they must have done the same. I often wonder if they like the gardens, as Mr Abbott was a great gardener, I have been told. The lot was much much larger back then and I wish I had that much room to garden . I also hope they like the kitchen and the restoration of the floors. We had no choice as to sanding due to long term damage from renters after the home was sold. But I hope they look like they did when the Abbotts and their children trod the floors.

When we sit on the big old front porch and watch the world pass us by I am sure that the Abbotts did the same . Our original old oak is very weak and they are coming to inspect it and see what can be done to save it. It has shaded many a person over the 120 years or so that it has stood. We will miss this big part of the history of our home if it has to be removed.

Great thread....c

What wonderful stories that brought a smile to my face! I remember shortly after moving in I was painting the hallway listening to big band music and I stopped and looked around and thought 'I bet the house is happy again'.

One of the things that I think about from time to time is the wife of th eoriginal owner of the house. I've been told that our house was built as a wedding gift to a bride from her husband. A friend of the husband did the work and as a wedding gift (unbeknownst to both bride and groom) he added all of the stained glass inside the house. I often wonder what her reaction was the first time that she saw her wedding present. Or so the story goes!

She lived in that house until she could no longer live there. Her husband had passed away. An older lady down the street used to stay w/ her some nights so that she wouldn't be alone. I wonder what the lady of the house was thinking as she lie there alone at night in her bed. Was she longing for her husband who passed away? I think to myself that that will be me too should DH go before me.

And I should mention that when DH and I got married a few yrs before moving here, his friend drove us in his restored 1930's Ford. After we moved to our house on Freedley St. we learned that the car had belonged to the husband of the lady who used to come down and spend the night!

Newdawn - I'm w/ you about owning an old house! I surely will not miss the major and constant fixes!

Gawd I am a sucker for a romantic story and that IS one ttodd.

I must tell you ttodd remember me talking about Mr. Duvall (the rich guy) I care for him so much at least today and vice versa.

I love your story of your house and I remember how you meet your husband, that's quite a story too.

Maybe one day you will share it with the new comer's on here, when your ready.

.....Jane

I am totally sentimental about my house. It was designed by my late DD and he taught us so much during the construction. Everywhere I look in this house I think of him. All the trim work was done so well because he was so picky. Our deck foundation will be there for 1000 years because he encouraged us to make that sturdy. DH and I do most of the work in remodeling and such around our home because of what we learned from him. It would break my heart to have to move from here.

The 2nd owner of our house (the one who wrecked it) told me that the widow he bought it from (1st owner) called it her Honeymoon Cottage. It will always be her Honeymoon Cottage in my mind. They lived here for 50-some years. 2nd owner said she had told him that she wanted to come back and see the house again, but she died before she got a chance to. He said he's kind of glad she didn't because he had changed things so much, it probably would not have been good for her to see it. I agree. Better in her memories....

What a wonderful thread! Great stories! I am very sentimental about my house; in fact, I sometimes have dreams - ok, nightmares - that I've had to move back to a previous house and can no longer be in my little old place that I've come to love so much over the past few years. I always wake up so very thankful to realize that I'm still in my bed, in my house!

I've had the privilege of meeting two of the "girls" who grew up in the house in the 1940s. They are delightful women, and have shared many stories of happy times spent there decades ago. I now know what the holiday rituals were -- the family all filed into the front living room on Christmas morning in a certain order, from the youngest to the oldest. They took their meals, not in the formal dining room, but in the kitchen around a small table. In 1948 when they turned a large portion of the attic into a bedroom for the family's teenage boy, they would all (mom, dad, boy, two sisters - and sometimes Grandma!) sleep upstairs in the summer months and run the window unit which made the heat a bit more tolerable. What is now a flagstone patio was where Grandma (who lived with the family for several years) tended lovingly to a rose garden. The family's dad carefully laid the brick patio in the backyard. I know there are a number of beloved family pets buried out there as well (and unfortunately, we've had to keep up that tradition - twice now).

A few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, someone rang my doorbell and it turned out to be Jean, one of the "girls", who was in town for a funeral and just wanted to stop by and take some pictures of the outside of the house. Of course, I insisted that she come in and tour her old home, and she seemed grateful for the opportunity. Tears filled her eyes when she told me that she wished her mama and daddy could see how well cared for the house is, and she just knew it would please them beyond words to know that it's still very much loved.

I thought this was an interesting twist: A number of months ago, after I'd emailed Jean some photos of our vividly decorated interior, she responded and told me that while the house didn't look that way when she lived there (all of the rooms were painted a soft green), she just knew her mother would have loved what we'd done. She said mama had a soft spot for Latin cultures and had visited several Latin countries and spoke Spanish fluently. I thought that was pretty cool.

Yep ... I just love my little old house, and even more so, now that I have not only an association - but a friendship -with those who lived there long before me.

Tons of favorite sentimental things in my parents' old house(now my brother's house.) We moved into it when I was 1 and my brother was a newborn. They stayed in it until early this year, when they moved to GA. I remember all the crazy games of hide & seek. I'd climb through the closet attic hatch and sit on the access door or climb out a second story window and stand on the sunroom roof.

That was the house where my siblings and I learned to ride bikes and where my dad carried me home to when my leg got caught in the spokes of my sister's bike(riding double.)

The house had those wrought iron scrollwork columns in the front holding up the roof overhang. Every last loop has a flat top from my brother and I sneaking out to go to parties(or rather from sneaking in - sneaking out involved jumping off the roof.) A couple of years ago, I was helping my dad with some odd jobs around the house and I climbed onto the garage roof to paint the second floor shutters. My mom shouted up, "You should let your dad do that, you might fall." (nevermind that I'm relatively young & healthy & my dad's been retired for 8yrs) I responded, "You don't even want to know how many times I've been on this roof. I love that house and was glad that my parents were financially capable of giving it to my little brother when they retired to GA.

The house I grew up in as a child had a milk chute. It had a door on the outside where the milkman delivered the milk and there was also a door on the inside of the house where you could get the milk. It was never used as a milk chute by our family but we used it as a mailbox and for our paper box.