When a house becomes a home
This house is special to me because it was my childhood home. It was standard 1970s ranch construction with a facade that exactly mirrored a home in historic Colonial Williamsburg that my mother loved. That house grounded me with security, family, friends, comfort and familiarity.
Although I moved out for college eight years after we moved in, that house continues to live in my heart as my “childhood home.”
But one thing is for sure. A house isn't necessarily a home. A real estate agent says she’s showing a “house” to a potential buyer, but that person will probably say he’s buying a “home.” The saying goes “home is where the heart is” not “house is where the heart is.”
A house becomes a home when its walls get covered with family photos. Closets bulge with familiar items and stuff you can’t bear to part with. Stacks of magazines surround your favorite chair, and fuzz bunnies from the much loved dog thrive under the furniture. A real home has quirks and treasured spaces, favorite rooms lit for the morning sun and persnickety doorknobs that never work.
Relative to most people my age, I lived in only a few houses growing up. My parents built their first house when I was a toddler, and I lived there until second grade. We lived in a rental for a few months after returning from a 2-year stint in Virginia while my parents built this house I consider my childhood home. We moved there when I was in the fourth grade.
The Williamsburg Christmas lights in the windows every year- First-day-of-school pictures in front of the fireplace
- Plays and beauty pageants in the downstairs playroom
- Prom date photos in the living room in front of the "blue chair" (that later became striped)
- The cool window seat in my bedroom where I wrote in my diary believing that spot gave me “inspiration”
- The shelves that held my Mrs. Beasley and my Mme Alexander doll collection
- Photos with the cousins on the den sofa
- The memories we made on the huge screened porch
- Birthday parties in the unfinished playroom
- The neat-as-a-pin attic that held boxes of photos, letters and grade school papers
- Milestone photos on the front porch.
It’s funny to think that I lived there for only eight years before heading to college. That’s just a couple of blinks in my 65 years. When I moved to a dorm and then an apartment in college, my childhood home became more of a way-stop. Once I moved to DC and had my own apartments, more of my belongings went back with me every time I visited Columbia.
After I got married and my childhood room became the guest room, I started gradually thinking of my childhood home as my parents’ house. I'm not sure exactly when that happened, but eventually it became a place to visit rather than a place where I lived.
Although I will admit, until my parents moved, I still had a house key (which has now become a Christmas tree ornament). I’d come and go as I pleased and walked in without knocking. Even as an adult, I still knew where the forks went in the drawer, how to find a pair of scissors and where my mother hid her favorite nail file.
In 2014, after 44 years in that house, my parents knew it was time to move. The yard and the house were more than they wanted to manage. The house sold quickly to the first family that looked at it. I know they would pick up the good karma of my family’s many happy times there.
My childhood home became someone else’s home. But for some reason, the date of April 8 as the day we moved into that house has always stuck in my head.
I stay in touch with the family who bought the house. They’ve invited me in to see the renovation work they’ve done. They tell me about which of their children lives in my room. They are part of the neighborhood fabric just as we were.
After the 2015 flood, they found several small mementos I’d left behind in that “secret window seat” space in my bedroom and returned these gems to me. They also discovered a piece of flooring where I’d carved my name when we first moved in. Today, 56 years after moving into that house, I still treasure the memories ginned up from those seemingly mundane items.
Every house has its time to be a home. My home now is where I have lived with my husband and dogs for 30+ years. The sale of my childhood home didn’t mean the memories, photos, old friends and great neighbors went away. I’m lucky to have them tucked into a place in my heart that will always be with me.
But, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit to tucking some of those memories into several plastic bins containing old photos, letters, term papers, report cards and news articles that I couldn't bear to pitch when the house sold. Good intentions over the years made me think I'd one day cull through all of those old bins … or maybe not. Just knowing they are up in a closet of my house gives me great joy.
Apologies to all below for some of the hideous outfits :
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