Over the years I have called many places home. At it's most basic, home is where I can take my shoes off, have a cup of tea, read in the bathroom and nap.
My first home is the house my parents still live in. I have not lived there since I moved to Tokyo in August 1990. But God help them if they ever sell it. It's where I grew up. It's where many of my first memories are. It's still where I feel most comfortable. It's the first place I want to go when I feel sick. And yep, at 37 I still get homesick. For a house I have't lived in, in 17 years.
The house was built for them. No one has ever lived in in but us. Two story and real red brick. Not a brick facade. In the backyard there was a swing set (that my dad built), a treehouse (that dad built), a trampoline, a basketball hoop (that dad built), a builtin brick BBQ (that was eventually removed, now it's a regular propane BBQ), a clothesline and a real pine tree that was huge, and Dad put christmas lights on it every year. Our backyard opened on to bushland, and we would get wallabies, possums and snakes. And every summer a bushfire. Now the bushland is disappearing as suburbia encroaches.
Downstairs is the garage, that was long ago renovated to become Dad's office, the laundry, which Kelly used briefly as a dark room, and "under the house" - the all purpose name given to what is literally under the house and it's where everything that is not being used gets stored. Somethings have disappeared under the house, never to be seen again.
Upstairs in the loungeroom, dining room and kitchen. The kitchen has a gas oven, stove top and grill. And a kettle that gets boiled on the stove - not an electric kettle. Dad redid the kitchen when I was highschool, in blackwood. Which it turns out he is allergic to the oils or something. He ended up in a oxygen tent.
There are three bedrooms - one for mum and dad, one for me and one for Shaun. And there is one bathroom. None of the bedrooms have ensuites. Ensuites were not common when I was growing up. Most houses only had one bathroom. But. In most Aussie houses of the time the bathtub, sink and shower are normally in one room. And the actual toilet is in a small room on it's own. In our house the bathtub and sink are in one room, the shower in another, and the toilet in another.
I loved my bedroom, it was on the front corner of the house, I had two big windows so I could see when anyone pulled into our driveway. It had a built in wardrobe that took up one complete wall, and the other wall was all bookshelf that my dad put up for me. I had pale blue carpet, cream wall paper with blue flowers, and a brass four poster bed, that Santa brought me for Christmas when I was 8. It had a trundle bed under it that I could pull out when friends came to sleepover.
Other places I have called home:
- A tiny three bedroom company apartment in Tokyo - there were 3 of us, and we each had our own bedroom. The bathroom was also the laundry and there was only one other room - it was a small square room that served as kitchen, dining and living room. We had one table that seated 3 and it also had our TV on it. If someone was standing at the sink, you could not open the fridge door or sit at the dining table.
- a single room in Tokyo. I had a real futon that was folded up each morning and put in the cupboard. And cushions for seating. I shared a traditional japanese bath with everyone else in the building - all female.
- staff housing in London. Great location on Tottenham Court Road, 10 minute walk to the hotel in Leicester Square. Walking distance to all the theatres and lots of shopping. My room had a single bed, sink, tiny closet, radiator, and the window overlooked the holding cell of the local police station. There were 7 bedrooms and we shared one tiny galley kitchen and a bathroom.
- a really dodgy bedsit at Heathrow. Jo had a bedsit upstairs, and I was downstairs. There were two others in the house, but we never saw them. We shared a bathroom and a kitchen.
- Two flats (apartments) in Bellevue Hill, just up the road from Bondi Beach. The second flat was small and I had two flatemates but my room had a view of the Harbour Bridge!
The first place we owned was a 2 bedroom apartment. On the second floor, across the road from the pub and the church. And 5 minutes from the airport. We repainted every wall, the previous owners ahd favoured a dark raspberry with stencilling, we replaced the carpet, the lino and the counter tops. We loved it. We never intended to move. We bought our current place on a whim.
Dave was out flying one day in April, and noticed a construction site down near the river. We drove down to see what was happening and it was a new townhouse development. But we couldn’t find any info - floor plans, prices etc and we weren’t in the market for a new place, so we forgot about it.
Couple of weeks later a mate of Dave’s phoned him and said “you know those places you were talking about down by the river, well there are people camped out on the street in front of the show home.” We drove down to take a look and sure enough there were about 8 people/couples who had set up camp for the night - tents, chairs, eskies, etc. We laughed at them all and went home.
Next morning Dave and I go for coffee/tea at our local coffee shop and Dave mentions - we should go have a look at those new places. It’s 7.30am so we head down, the show home/sales office doesn’t open until noon, so we join the queue. We are now about #12 in the line up. We still don’t know the layout or the prices as the sales staff are not saying anything. Finally at noon they open, and they are only letting 3 potential buyers in at a time. Then they are waiting for those people to make a decision before they let in the next 3 people in line. It’s about 1.30pm before Dave and I get in.
We like what we see, but because of the demand the sales staff want you to sign on the dotted line and pay a deposit now. We don’t have $5000.00 with us, or so I thought….Dave bought the cheque book just in case. So after a couple of phone calls to his parents, and then our real etate agent Ken Ambrose, we signed the dotted line! That was Saturday April 23rd 2005.
Sunday we started cleaning our apartment - scrubbing floors, washing walls, vaccuming etc etc. Sunday night, Ken and Jane came over so we could sign the listing contract, and they made some suggestions. Monday and Tuesday we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, and packed up “stuff”. The apartment had never looked so good. Ken listed it on Wednesday and by Friday it had sold! And we had to be out by June 30th. We didn’t get the keys to the new place until July 11th, so what did we do in the mean time? We stayed with Paul, Erin, Mackenzie and Ailis. Thank you.
We took posession on July 11th and spent a few days painting and making some minor changes -again with the help of Paul and Erin. We are not fans of the builders beige paint that the developer used.
We are second from the left - the first brick one.
Our barcode wall in our bedroom. Hubby built the bed - it has 4 drawers for storage under it. We need a headboard and bedside tables, but can't find any we like.
Our "keylime" green kitchen. I love it. We added the island - Dave found it in the As Is section at Ikea. It had a grey laminate top. Dave found the slab of butchers block also in the As Is section and changed to tops, he also added the breakfast bar extension.
Our dining room. You can see we have the important stuff like a full wine rack. But no dining table or chairs. We can't decide on any.
The living room. The picture used to hang on the wall above the fireplace. Dave gave me the flat screen TV for my birthday back in May, and as of today, the picture is still mounted on the floor.
If you are bored, you can see a lot more photos at flickr.