This is my response to Week 5’s prompt ‘Your Childhood Home.’ More details about the prompt can be found on Julie’s blog
here.
In my 23 years of existence so far, I have lived in not one, not two, but six houses.
House 1: 1990 – 1991
House 2: 1991 – 1992
House 1 (again): 1992 – 1993
House 3: 1993 – 2007
House 4: 2007 – 2010
House 5: 2010
House 6: 2010 – current.
All houses were in Brisbane, Australia, except for House 2, when we lived in Virginia, USA. The houses I have lived in in Brisbane have even been in the same suburb! Yep, you read correctly. Except for living in the USA, I have lived in the same suburb my entire life! We refer to House 1 as the Yellow House, because it was yellow. I have no memory of living there though, or the house in the USA.
This is a photo of the yellow house, which I have cropped from Google Maps Street View.
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| House 1: The Yellow House. Source: Google Maps. |
House 3 was definitely my childhood home, and I lived there for my entire schooling life. It was a 2 & a half story house. The bottom level was the rumpus room. This had 2 guest bedrooms, and a general entertaining area. The only guests we ever really had were my grandparents from both sides, and family friends from overseas. I do remember having sleepovers with my friends down there though. Other than that, I don’t remember it being used much, and it did get quite dirty. It had this weird linoleum floor too. The rumpus room also led outside to our pool. Gosh, that pool brings back so many memories. I really miss having a pool because it can get so hot in summer here.
The middle floor consisted of the kitchen, living room, bathroom, laundry, and also led onto a small balcony. The kitchen and living room had white walls, but the bench tops and cupboards were brown. I remember a lot of brown, white & this patterned floor below. My mum absolutely hated it.
Actually, now that I think about it, my mum described the brown as ‘mission brown’ which was apparently quite popular in the 70’s & 80’s. In the living room, there was a long wall which had doors that led out onto the balcony. This wall also had black louvers along the bottom. When I was young, I was sitting at a table next to the wall; I fell off the chair and hit my head on the edge of the louvers. I don’t really remember it. I think I went to hospital, but I’m not sure. I do remember wearing something on my head for a couple of day’s though maybe?
Here’s a photo of me in the living room when I was little.
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| Me. Approx 1994/1995. |
The top floor, the half level, had the lounge room, study, entry way, and three bedrooms – parents, brother’s and mine. The lounge room had white woolly carpet, a very high ceiling, and lights that seemed like the size of planets when I was young. We didn’t really use this room except for special occasions such as Christmas. The study & my brother’s room had white carpet. I’m not too sure what the carpet in my parents’ bedroom was but I think it was a mixture of white and brown.
What color carpet did I have in my room? GREEN. GREEN GREEN GREEN. You know, the colour of grass. I loved my room, and I went through many phases with different posters and whatnot.
When I was 3 or 4, I was still wearing nappies sometimes for reasons I don’t remember. What I do remember though, is mum opening the closet and pulling the nappy out. I was all ready to plonk my naked butt down on that nappy when mum folded it out…there was a giant Daddy Long Legs spider just chillin’ in the nappy. Thankfully I did not plonk my naked butt down on the spider. That would have been fun.
I would post photos of the house, but I don’t have any on my computer. They’re all in boxes with the rest of mums photos.
Towards the end of 2005, our house was starting to get quite old, and the balcony was not safe anymore. My parents began consulting with builders because they wanted to demolish & have a new house built. At the end of 2007, on my second last day of high school, we moved to our first rental house (House 4) which was on the other side of the suburb. Our house was demolished at the end of 2007, or early 2008. I don’t remember exactly. At the beginning of 2010, we moved to our second rental property, House 5, which was on the same road as House 4, just further up. Construction of our house began sometime in 2009, and was finished at the end of 2010. Here’s a picture of it during the construction process.
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| Construction of House 6 |
Our original house was situated on two blocks of land. When we rebuilt, we built on one side, and sold the land on the other. At the end of 2010, our house was finally finished, and we moved in. So yes, House 6 is where House 3 was.
I still live at home with my parents. Most kids in Australia don’t usually move out until they have finished Uni, or close to it. I’d like to move out next year or in 2015 at the latest, but we’ll see what happens.
To finish, I’d like to leave you with the image of our house on Google Maps Street View. When did Google Maps decide to take this photo? Not before our house was demolished, not after our house was finished being built, but at the beginning of the building process. I think Google might need to do some updating…
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| My house according to Google Maps. |
