As hinted at and mentioned in previous entries, I had a rather modest upbringing. We had an average sized house (for our neighborhood) that my father altered many times before he finally decided to get "off the hill" and move to lower ground. That home in Adamston was the first house I can remember living in even though I had lived in another (On Glenwood Hill) from birth until almost 3 years of age, when dad and my pregnant mom moved into a house on the hill in Adamston (there we go with those hills again). Since I do not remember anything about the house on Glenwood Hill (except that a little girl we lived next to attended high school with me...and remembers us playing as babies) I shall start in Adamston (see below, house in center. This photo was taken in 2007).
The house was small by some people's standards...probably less than 1000 sq ft (half of todays "average" home) and was already old when we moved into it...50-70 years old if my sources are correct. It had originally been used as housing for the employees of a mining company near the turn of the century. My father had told me that when he bought it, it had no insulation and it was very drafty. It had 2 bedrooms and 1 bath with a medium sized kitchen and living room. It had a small pantry that was only accessible via the second bedroom. This second bedroom was occupied by my older half brothers until I was 6 or so, when they moved to Ohio to live with their bio-mom. Once they moved out, I moved in with my younger brother. Later on my father added a laundry room (an oddity in my neighborhood where most people had washers/dryers in the basement or in the kitchen...some people even had them in their bathrooms) that was still only accessible via my bedroom, but it had a back door...a feature I made use of in later years. The old pantry was used as a hallway to connect my room with the laundry room.
When my sister was born 7 years after we moved in, my dad added another room on to serve as her bedroom. It was added on to the very small dining room and it was not heated...instead her room relied on the heat from the rest of the house to keep it warm. It was very small (8 x 10) but served my sisters needs until I moved out when I was 21.
The house had a medium sized front porch (something not seen often in todays homes where "stoops" are more common) and a little concrete pad for a back porch. After my sister was born, dad built a patio between the laundry room and her room. It was actually pretty nice and provided a lot of shade during those hot, humid WV summers.
The yard was a terraced slope with a parking pad near the top and a tool shed right below. There usually was a small vegetable garden somewhere in the yard unless dad was too busy to start one. Originally the shed was only 10 x 10 but dad was a pack rat and decided to expand it out 10 more feet to make it 10 x 20. I loved that shed. It was like a gold mine of junk. If you needed something, dad most likely had it "in the shed".
Dad was always making upgrades to the house. Aside from adding 2 rooms and a patio, he paneled every room, did his own wiring and plumbing, painted, and put up siding. Later on he even re-arranged how the kitchen was set up, blocking off one doorway, moving the sink, stove, and fridge to different walls, and opening up spot in the wall to go directly to the laundry room...like it should have been from the start. I think my dad would have replaced the roof himself if he would have had the time and the help. I was not very good at that sort of thing and to be honest, I was not very interested in it, either.
After I married my (then) wife, I moved out from that house and bought a house of similar size and design across the street and "above" mom and dad's house. (remember, WV = every thing is either above or below you). It was a fixer-upper, but I did not mind. I had a pregnant wife and I needed space...quickly. That house was not terribly bad but it needed a lot of TLC. It needed painting on the outside, new windows, some sort of wall covering (paint, wallpaper, paneling, etc), insulation...the whole nine yards. The big difference between the two houses was mom and dad's had a small dining room and mine did not. Our kitchen and living room we a touch larger and we just put the dining room table in the kitchen. There was small back room that I considered wasted space that we used as a "mud room" ... a place where you took off your muddy shoes not to track up the living room floor. The bathroom was in the back of the house off of the mud room and had two doors. One door was off the mud room and the other went into the master bedroom. The mud room also had a door into the small utility room.
My father and I worked on the inside of that house and while it was passable, it was far from professional. I ran out of money before I ran out of projects, so we had to put the rest of the repairs on hold until I could get more money. Needless to say, that never happened.
When wintertime rolled around, I found out just how cold a house could be. My house was so drafty that the furnace ran all the time. Back when natural gas was much cheaper than it is now, I still had one winter where I paid a $200+ gas bill...that was 20 years ago. I have a lot of bad memories of that place...mostly connected to my (then) wife, but that is another chapter...
I lived in that house until the summer of 1989 when I moved to NC with my (then) wife. We rented an apartment (750 sq ft I think) that was not too bad (the complex had 10 or so buildings) considering it was the cheapest one in the area. I had 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, a large living room with connected dining room and a galley kitchen. It was in the basement of the building we lived in but only part of it was underground. Being partially underground kept it much cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter and that meant we saved money on electricity. The apartment was very convenient to both my (then) wife's work and mine. The area had a mall and a shopping center just across the boulevard and that meant almost anything I needed was within walking distance. The biggest problem we had with that apartment was with the neighbors beside us. While the people were nice, they had a very bad roach problem and the roaches eventually decided to take up residence with us. I had
never seen a roach before I moved into this apartment and I was beginning to freak out. We called the super many many times, but they never were able to get rid of the roaches. We moved out 18 months after we moved in.
At this point my (then) wife and I parted ways (that story to come at a later date) and I stayed with a co-worker for until I found a place of my own. At the behest of Landshark, I moved in with "The Axe Murderer" and his roommate (I think his name was Ray) who was the son of a preacher (that should have been my first clue). Those 25 days I lived with those two (I slept on the couch) were very...interesting.
Almost 4 weeks after leaving my (then) wife, I found a room to rent about 2-3 miles from my work. It was a newer home and the guy who owned lived downstairs while he rented out the two upstairs bedrooms for extra cash. He interviewed me and accepted a security deposit in exchange for a the key. Being that close meant I could walk to work if I needed to (I was riding a 12 speed bicycle to work at that time) but not so far out of the way that I would have trouble bumming a ride now and then. I got moved in without a hitch but ended up only living there about 6 months. A lot of things contributed in my choice to leave and maybe at some point I will elaborate on them. During the time I lived there I bought a car so biking was as a means of transportation was dismissed. I was then free to bike for fun rather than by necessity.
While I was renting that room, my good friend Landshark informed me that he was moving in with MFLS (Future Mrs. Landshark) and his room at the home of the "2 Live Jews" was going to be available. He (re)introduced me to the owner, "Bob the Slob" and his brother, "Dr. Dave". We chatted for a bit then Bob says, "When can you move in?". I told him that I had paid rent at my old place until the end of the month so I could move in then. Bob then told me that if I moved in right away, he would not charge me any rent until the beginning of the following month, about 2 weeks way. Sold! I went home and told my landlord/house mate that I was moving out immediately. A lot of drama went on but, again, maybe I will expound later.
I moved in with the "2 Live Jews" on a Saturday and made that house my home for over 2.5 years. I have nothing but fond memories of that house and the living arrangement we had. It had plenty of room (3 big bedrooms, 2.5 baths, TV room, formal dining room, an open, connected living room/kitchen, a utility room and a garage) and privacy and it was located far enough way to make me happy but close enough I did not have to drive forever to get to work. The only thing that mars that period was when Bob's girlfriend, Jenny, moved in. On a Friday or Saturday night, Bob asked us if we minded if Jenny moved in. Dave asked when she planned on moving in and Bob said, "Monday". Wow, thanks Bob.
That leads me to the story of when Jenny moved in. Even though I was not there, the story Dr. Dave told me (and later confirmed by Jenny) is hilarious. Dr. Dave had just gotten back from a long shift at the hospital (he tended to work 24+ hours at a time). He did not bother to go upstairs to his room, rather, he took of his scrubs and laid down on the couch and was soon asleep. About an hour later or so he heard someone trying to unlock the front door. Thinking it was me trying to get in (Bob usually came in via the connected garage where he parked his MR2 ), he got up yelling, "Hold on LG, I coming." He then opened the door to be greeted by Jenny. Dave looked at Jen, Jen looked at Dave (in his underwear) and said, "Oh, you must be Dave" to which he replied (in a voice I imagine sounded very much like Eeyore at the time), "...and you must be Jenny". He then proceeded to lay back on the couch while she moved in her stuff. When I got home, Dave is up, Jenny is gone, and Bob is not home yet. Dave said to me, "LG, find us an apartment. You know what we need. It is time we moved out."
About a month or so later, Dave and I move into a rather nice 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment in a complex off of Guess Road in Durham. It was not too big (900 sq ft or so) and since I was getting ready to move in 6 months (I was getting remarried) this would work out well for both of us. Dr. Dave was planning on moving as soon as he graduated med school, so this was going to work out very well. I think the only complaint that I had was during the winter a water line broke and flooded the apartment. There was not a lot of damage, but it made a mess. If I remember correctly, the heating system was not overly efficient and did not keep my bedroom very warm.
After Mrs LG and I tied the knot, we moved into her small 700 sq ft apartment. We did not plan on staying there because we both desired a house, even if we had to rent. We found one about 6 months later and were all prepared to move in when we were told that the house was no longer available. This worried me since we had already gave a vacancy notice to the company we were renting from. The landlord to be told us not to worry, he had another house he wanted to let us rent for the same price. The drawback to the place he wanted to rent to us was that it was right on a busy highway. It did however have a huge expanse of woods behind it which made up for the noise of the highway. We reluctantly agreed and moved in.
The house was about 900 sq ft and had 3 small bedrooms, 1 bath, a large living room with a connected dining room, and a small kitchen. It did not have a utility room and the hook-ups for the washer were in the kitchen. Even odder was that the dryer hookups were in the open dining room. It had a covered front porch (8 x 8) and an uncovered back stoop.
It turned that the woods behind our house was one of the best features of the place. My wife and I hiked together on warm days and when the pressures of life go too much for me, I would take Little Man (back when he was a pup) and walk for hours. At some times of the year you had to dodge the hunters and every now and then a motorcycle or ATV would interrupt your hike, but it was mostly good.
We stayed in that house near the intersection of Miami Blvd and New Raleigh Road for 4 years. We wanted to stay until we had enough money saved up (and I was making enough money) to buy a house. A few of eerie events help motivate us to look for a house quicker than we would have liked, one being my son's bio-mom tracking us down and demanding that I give my son to her for a "visit".
It took us a year and a few false starts before we found our first home. We had initially went to look at the house across the street but when it turned out to be in worse shape than we had hoped, we looked at the other. While it did not win any awards for style or looks, it was roomy (1900 sq ft). It had a HUGE kitchen, formal dining room, small living room, utility room, 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. 2 of the 3 bedrooms were big (13 x 17) and the house sat on a wooded lot with trees all around it. Our closest neighbor was over 100' away and we had off street parking. We sunk every dime we had into the closing of that house so we did not have any real money to fix it up. We had to have it painted so we hired a guy from church to paint it for us (we borrowed the money) and when it was dry we moved in. Over the next three years we did a lot of yard work to help even out a scraggly looking lot. I cut down a couple of trees to even the lot up, cut down a lot of undergrowth, moved tons of rock, had 8 loads of dirt dumped to level out a slope, and transplanted more flowers and shrubs than a man should ever have to.
We stayed in that house for 3 years before I was relocated to Texas. My employer made me a great move offer so I jumped on it. At first my wife was not thrilled with the idea, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized it was the best move. We came down on a "house hunting trip" (paid for by Ericsson) in July of 2001, and after we decided on a place, my wife flew back to NC to start getting the house ready to sell. I was put in a corporate apartment (left, we had the bottom unit) in Richardson for 60 days until we closed on our house in Allen. The corporate apartment was not bad, but it was too close to the tollway. Inside it was nice, but outside it was noisy. I don't miss it at all. I like owning a home.
We closed on our house in Allen at the end of July and moved in early August. It is not a big house (1650 sq ft), but it does have a garage (something we have wanted for a long time) and a fenced in yard. It has 3 bedrooms/2 baths and was only 3 years old when we moved in. It has a very open floor plan with a built in entertainment center in the living room. It is the nicest and the newest home we have ever owned to date...God has truly blessed us.
Since moving in we have done a little work to the house to make it more "ours". My wife has started painting (inside and out), and I put up new ceiling fans in every almost room. I also installed new hanging lights in the kitchen and foyer and replaced all the bathroom towel racks with nicer silver and brass ones. Since the yard did not have a sprinkler system when we moved in, we had one installed a couple of years ago as well as new cedar fence to replace the old white pine one that was falling apart. I had a concrete pad poured to extend our rear patio so I could put my shed on a flat surface. We have lots of plans (tile floors, more painting, a master bath remodel) but we are going to take our time...Rome was not built in a day.
I got home and changed the bedding in our room (vacuuming the mattress first) and then grabbed a bite to eat. I had lunch but it was light and I was beginning to get hungry. I had a couple of pork sloppy joes, some pita chips, and a Monster energy drink and then started moving stuff back into my office. I think the floor is dry now.
