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My grandparents lived on the second floor, of a triple decker in Massachusetts. Every apartment had a porch off the back and clotheslines ran from there across the back yard. My grandmother callEd it “the piazza”. She kept her wringer washer there too. I don’t remember too much about it, except there was an air shaft in the bathroom. What I remember vividly is the smell of the main foyer, inside the front door of the building. It was perhaps, dust and the rubber treads on the stairs. If I ever get back there, I’d like to go in and take a whiff of that area to see if it still smells the same.
I just googled the house, and it has been taken care of. It was built in 1920.
When I was 5 and went to kindergarten, my family lived below my grandparents for a year, until my parents bought a house. I loved being so close to my grands.
Later, when my grandfather retired, they moved to a farm in VT, and after that to a little house in Florida.
Last edited by gentlearts; 01-30-2021 at 03:19 PM..
Both of my grandmothers are still alive. One grandfather is.
I spent probably twenty times to one the time with my maternal grandparents vs. paternal. Maternal grandfather died in 2009, she sold the house last year. I'm 34 now.
I spent summers and after schools over there until at least middle school, and a good bit of off-days throughout college helping my grandfather out in the yard. House was a ~1450 sq. ft. tri-level with bedrooms/bathrooms upstairs, laundry and drive-in garage in the basement. They had a single car carport that was big enough to sit on with a car in. Hose around the side to wash off the veggies. Three "sticker bushes" along the right side of the house.
We'd garden all summer - can, eat fresh veg, etc. Lots of baseball, popsicles, video games - good wholesome memories.
The house's systems were fine, but it was cosmetically dated. New heat pump in 2019, new roof few years before that. It's in the county in a declining school district, and the next closest town is not desirable. Good, level, flat, quarter acre lot, yard in good shape - you can push mow it in 45-60 minutes.
I figured the house would struggle to sell or it would sell at a discount. It was listed in May. It sold 20% over asking to a young couple where the man was an electrician. He'll sort the few issues the house has out quickly.
Paternal grandparents live in a fairly large split foyer. 3 small BR, 2 BA, sunroom added on back in the late 1990s. She's a hoarder and collector. Basement has a den that was long since hoarded. You can sit in the living room - they generally stay in the sun room. Yard is a mess because she'd plant stuff and never maintain it. Turn it under and start over. It's in the Virginia mountains - poor growing soil. Grandpa has a detached, large garage because he was an appliance repairman, and still piddles with it.
Sorry I've had a spider drop down on me in the bed, one too many times. I keep glue traps out along the baseboards. I want NO spiders in my bedroom thank you very much.
Ours stays in one area from the table in front of the sofa forward to the wall. He likes to go under the large chest against the wall but also stays near us just perfectly still. That point seems to be his other border. He goes no further back that the back of the table in front of the sofa. He never bothers us. Can't speak for any other spiders.
My grandparents home was very memorable. They immigrated from Holland and my dad grew up on a tulip farm. They sold the farm by the time I came around but still had the old farmhouse, right on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Upstairs had no heat, a relative brought glass of water to bed and it froze on top.
In my paternal grandfather's house, there was a cool little room in the basement where the coal was dumped from an outside shoot (when they used to get coal deliveries). Years later, it was updated to an oil furnace, and my uncle used it as a darkroom for his photography hobby. My grandmother died before I was born, and my grandfather (and later my uncle) left her bedroom untouched. Her clothes, shoes, and hats were dusty and moth eaten in the closet, and her dressing table was just as she'd left it when she died, with jars of dried up creams. I used to go in there, check out her dresses and try on her hats...and wish she hadn't died. All I knew of her were old photos and home movies of a very overweight, sickly elderly woman.
My bachelor uncle, who remained in the big old house alone after my grandfather died (until his own death), was a hoarder (and had some unfortunate mental health issues). He left my grandfather's room and clothes intact just like my grandmother's. He had lots of other hobbies besides photography...an organ, tons of books, and color home movie and tape recording equipment from the 1940's and 1950's. I liked to listen to his recordings on the old tape spools of my late grandmother reciting poems...like "The Goblins Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out" or "Annabelle Lee" in her quavering, old lady's voice. I was a bit shocked when I recently visited her grave, to discover that she was only in her early 60's when she died...almost my age now!
I need to add, that when my uncle suffered a fatal stroke in the mid 80's, my dad (his surviving brother), as executor, had the responsibility of cleaning out the house to sell it. By then, it looked like the tv show "Hoarders". I was pregnant with oldest DD at the time, and couldn't be inside for more than ten minutes at a time before having to run outside to throw up in my late grandmother's rose bushes. Luckily, one of DH's friends had a sanitation service and helped us empty the house. The salvageable antiques were sold at auction. DH's friend mentioned that when he took my grandfather's old chair out to the truck, he found several old silver dollars under the cushions and offered to give them back. My dad just told him, "Finder's Keepers". He still has them, last I heard.
I salvaged many boxes of old ancestors' photos (fortunately I had my dad identify the subjects while he was still alive), portraits of my great grandmother and grandmother, and my great grandmother's immigrant trunk. Also, my mother kept my grandmother's Wedgwood china (which oldest DD now owns).
The house, on a double lot, was sold for a fraction of what it was worth, because it was in what had become a "seedy" area over the years and was in such sad repair. It's now been restored, and the neighborhood has become one of the city's newly "gentrified" areas (although they sadly cut down the big old oak trees surrounding it, and tore out my grandmother's rose garden).
Last edited by Mrs. Skeffington; 01-31-2021 at 10:23 AM..
Both grandparents' house/apartment weren't that memorable. They just had late 60s/early 70s decor, when I can first start remembering things, in the early 80s.
Now, my great grandma (mom's maternal grandmother) lived in a rather bleak little apartment in a converted Victorian house. I remember a green naugahyde wingback chair with brass rivets, standing ashtrays around the living room, a little black and white TV on a shelf, and a tiny 24" wide range in the kitchen. Her apartment always seemed dark and yellowed. (Thinking back, this was probably nicotine staining)
When she would take me to visit friends in other apartments in the same house, they were even darker, with closed roller shades on the windows.
There was a public center hall, with a once grand staircase. Almost everything was painted sky blue, except for the baseboards and balusters, which were white. (Even the banister was painted the same blue as the walls) I guess the owners wanted to counteract the dreariness of the apartments. LOL.
My grandparents lived on the second floor, of a triple decker in Massachusetts. Every apartment had a porch off the back and clotheslines ran from there across the back yard. My grandmother callEd it “the piazza”. She kept her wringer washer there too. I don’t remember too much about it, except there was an air shaft in the bathroom. What I remember vividly is the smell of the main foyer, inside the front door of the building. It was perhaps, dust and the rubber treads on the stairs. If I ever get back there, I’d like to go in and take a whiff of that area to see if it still smells the same.
I just googled the house, and it has been taken care of. It was built in 1920.
When I was 5 and went to kindergarten, my family lived below my grandparents for a year, until my parents bought a house. I loved being so close to my grands.
Later, when my grandfather retired, they moved to a farm in VT, and after that to a little house in Florida.
My grandparents were also in MA. We knew people who lived in triple deckers
When you opened the closet doors at my grandma's house, you'd be knocked down by the scent of mothballs. Since there were always wonderful things inside those closets, the smell of mothballs is still a comforting scent to me.
Doilies on everything. Knick-knacks everywhere. Always a lace tablecloth on the dining room table. She liked things "nicely done" so we never drank our 7-Ups out of a bottle or ate our cheese curls from the bag. We made a big deal of having the sodas in cocktail glasses with a cherry in them and the treats were always in a crystal bowl on a silver tray. It was always fun. We called it "tea at the Ritz".
Roses everywhere. Rose wallpaper, rose bedspread, rose throw pillows, rose sachet, towels with roses on them. She loved her roses.
Grandpa always kept a big jar of pickled pigs feet in the refrigerator. I couldn't stand to look at them so when I got something out of the refrigerator, I'd turn my head and grope for whatever I was looking for.
Grandpa liked to slurp his hot coffee. Grandma would get on him for that....it wasn't "refined". When grandma drank from a cup, she always stuck her little finger out. Apparently THAT was "refined".
Grandma was a bit of a shop-a-holic and had lots and lots of pretty clothing and jewelry. We got to play dress up whenever we wanted. Swishing around in a taffeta dress with about 20 pounds of rhinestone jewelry on was every little girl's dream. Grandma never learned to drive, so we'd go downtown on the bus at any opportunity and shop...and shop...and shop. We'd eat at the tea room and hold our little fingers out.
Then there was my great-grandmother who wore long dresses and smoked a corn-cob pipe to her dying day. She had a big featherbed mattress and the one time I remember spending the night with her, I recall sinking down in the middle of it and not being able to see over the sides. Her house was full of little china figurines that I was.not.to.touch.on.pains.of.death. On the other hand, just about everything was accessible at grandma's house, as long as you were careful.
That's just on one side of the family. The other grandma and great-grandma were wonderful, too, but I didn't see them as often as they lived several states away.
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