Do You Live in Your Childhood House?

My wife, two kids and I are living in the house that I grew up in. When we arrived in 2010, it was miserable and falling apart, dust everywhere. We lacked the funds to do much of anything until about a year and a half ago. That's when we had the exterior painted for the first time in at least 20-plus years, converted the crumbling, slanted, cold garage into a bedroom with many more windows, fixed the storm-damaged front porch and turned the old laundry room into a computer work room. We also added a storage area and new laundry room under the backyard stairs. All done on a budget. One thing I miss: Back in the day, anyone could live here; now everyone is extraordinarily wealthy.

When I met my husband, we told each other about the places we'd lived, so I told him about the following house. I began by saying, "Have you ever lived in a place that you loved? I did, for about 2 years, in junior high/high school."
It was a bungalow, built perhaps in the 1940's-1950's, in the country, in eastern Independence, Missouri, in the 1980's; country-people houses, around here at least, often focus more on function than beauty, which gives them a certain *feel. The scary part, which I didn't hate, because it seemed fitting somehow, was the unfinished basement, which had washer-dryer hookups, which we didn't have, and we didn't need the basement for storage, really, so we rarely went down there. It had been a farm, so there was full-size pear trees, random plantings of flowers and trees(shady yard <3)- the previous/original owner had clearly loved them but had no knowledge or desire for actual landscaping lol. I learned to tell the time of year by what was in bloom, starting with crocus, then daffodil/jonquil/narcissus and hyacinth, then violets in 4 colors, then lilac, then tulip tree, then snowball bush, lily of the valley and iris, about 5 colors. 2 rosebushes, a small one with deep blood-red almost black blooms, and a Huge bush with enormous pale pink blooms. A catalpa tree, a gingko tree, honeysuckle, yucca, poppies, black-eyed susans, and a prickly pear cactus(when we first moved in, I got too close with bare feet, and regretted it for a couple of days, with tiny coppery spines between my toes. The fruit was good, though). We were in our second summer there when I found a flower I'd never seen before. I'm 5'2", and I barely had to stoop to smell it, a large bloom, pale orchid color with dark stamens and pistil. No smell at first, then ugh!! Dead skunk smell! Ack! I later found out it's a carrion flower, that mimics roadkill smell to attract those kind of bugs, for pollination. Yick lol.
The drive, a longish one, ended in a horseshoe, and a sidewalk(unusual in that neighborhood) led to the front door, on the sunroom, which I liked but rarely used; I liked other rooms much better. The actual front door, went from there to the living room, which somehow, lounger that I am, I don't recall using it much either. Dining room to the right, kitchen past that, with an enclosed back porch beyond, that functioned like a butler's pantry(love to have one someday). A bedroom opened off the kitchen toward the back, the basement stairs went from the dining room(also access from outside the back porch), and the bathroom- humongous in a house of the period- off the aforementioned bedroom. The hall was on the far side of the bathroom, with my parent's room across the way, and my room was a former greenhouse off the living room, so it had a door to the outside, however there was no sneaking out that door lol- it was a French door, with old-school metal blinds over the window. The door squeaked, and blinds clanked with the slightest movement. The cat loved the resulting circular floor plan- many's the time that he felt frisky, and would run around around around, claws scrabbling on the (mostly)hardwood floor.

@G - It's evident that you loved living there to be able to describe it in such loving detail almost 30 years later! Sounds like a very warm place.