The house I grew up in is for sale!   Since most of you readers are family and close friends, you already know the house I’m speaking of.

I called the Listing Agent immediately after I heard it was on the market and he referred me to one of his Real Estate Agents to schedule an appointment to see it.  I told him the truth, that I’d grown up there and wanted to see it out of curiosity and he seemed fine with that, but when I talked to his agent, she told me they already had 4 offers and that those offers were being submitted that night, and basically (in no specific terms) she suggested she did not want to waste her time showing me the home if I wasn’t prepared to place an offer.

Um, OK.  Impatient me, I started calling around to Real Estate agents that I knew and was frank with them- told them I wasn’t planning on placing an offer, I just wanted to see the place.

So Wednesday night we had an appointment to see the house!  My parents came with us.  It was much improved over the last time we toured it (probably the last time it was up for sale which would have been 2004).  It has some little weirdness issues, but overall looks really good.  The kids enjoyed seeing it and especially liked the upstairs.  The owners after us converted the loft to another bedroom, and finished the walk-in attic so that it houses a bonus room and another bedroom at the very end. No bathroom upstairs, and no closets for either bedroom, and no added ventilation so it gets really HOT up there.  It’s still really a 3-bedroom house.

The next day I did some digging through old photographs to show the kids what the house was like when I lived there…. compared to what it looks like now…. although the pictures I have were not of the house itself…they were pictures of me (or friends and family) with the house in the background.  I’ll see if Mom has some better pictures to coincide with the current shots.

For now, enjoy this show (and don’t laugh, I grew up in the 80’s):

Here’s the house now (photos borrowed from the real estate listing):

Mid 80’s:

I prefer my parents’ landscaping.  (BTW this is Jeanette above!  Ha ha ha ha)

Here are some other views of the front:

And today:

Here’s the color scheme (and old windows, old door, no shutters, etc) from my childhood:

Another before and after:

The backyard was incredibly disappointing.  First, here’s a couple close-ups of the landscaping my parents did:

This was taken in the backyard behind the Living Room window.  And this next picture was taken outside the Master Bedroom window/closet area:

And here’s that same area several years later, when my parents were still the owners:

Now let’s zoom out and look at the backyard today:

ALL those flowerbeds and landscaping- gone.  Uck.

Let’s go back inside:

Here’s the kitchen today:

Here’s the kitchen I grew up with (and let me apologize in advance to my mom and Mel):

I have to say that despite the fact that the cabinets were painted and not replaced (and currently do not close completely) and the counter top was tiled over (and some tiles are broken), and they left the holes in the cabinets from the knobs (and just replaced the knobs)- I’m glad they’ve made these updates to the kitchen….it suits today’s market.  Whew!  Back in the day, the kitchen was quite nice- it was updated to blue counters, cream tile backsplash, new linoleum, it looked really good at the time.

Here’s a good then and now:

The Family Room- disappointed that they painted the rock fireplace white, but that’s OK.  I would repaint the entire room a creamy beige color, including the fireplace, so it’s not such a focal point.  No white fireplaces for me.  Here’s today’s look:

Here’s me, my sister and Dad playing “choo choo train”:

And on the day we moved out:

Bathrooms have been updated.  Here’s the main bathroom as it looked while we lived there:

And now:

OH, we found a picture of the dining room….

Then:

Now:

And check it out, the owners after us took out the hallway and entry walls:

Anyway, that’s all the pictures I could dig up for now.  I’ll keep looking and update this post if I find more!