What Makes a House a Home

One sentimental object of value that has gone with my family no matter where we moved growing up was my grandfather's glasses. He passed away when I was about seven years old. My dad is one of nine kids, and they were all given one of their father's personal items. My dad came back from the funeral at his hometown in Puerto Rico with his dad's glasses. After all these years, my dad still has it in a case in his dresser drawer.


So, growing up in a very unique log home, one significant piece of furniture to my family is the dining table my parents bought for their first apartment after they were married in Hinesville, Georgia. My sister and I are using it as our dining table in our apartment in Ruston today. Growing up in a military home, the table has been in every picture and now is part of the new memories with me during my college years. 
I grew up in a construction zone. For the ten years we lived in the 1-1/2 story log home, I can remember always having my parents take on a project to renovate the old 70s decor. The living room had red carpet, a petrified wood fireplace that reached all the way to the 16' ceiling loft, and a mural on the opposite wall. The furnace in the kitchen was wood-burning and the kitchen and living room could be seen from upstairs' balcony. The upstairs bathroom was all blue and the downstairs bathroom was all pink: the entire bath tub/shower, the sink, the toilet, the countertops, etc. That and the velvet wallpaper had to have been the hardest things to deal with in changing the home to fit our taste. After all the paint, new flooring (got rid of all red and pukey-green carpet), bathroom renovations, our log home, interior and exterior make-over, was definitely part of all my greatest memories there. Because of the work, I knew every inch of our home. My sister and I had the best hide-n-seek spots and the best time making our "forts" out of the dining room table chairs we have now and large bed sheets.


I am not gonna lie, seeing the log home when we were first moving in was not love at first sight. It smelled like cigarette smoke in every inch of the house. The wood-burning furnace, the mural behind the cast-iron staircase, and the petrified wood furnace were the only things I fount fascinating at the time. My parents' hard work worked in their favor and after a year of trying to move closer to my dad's job, they now live in a home that needed no interior or exterior work. My parents took up gardening because of the large back yard with no fencing and no pets to draw paths in the grass. Now, my favorite place is the garden and the large french doors that lead out to the back patio. My greatest memory in the new home is the night we moved in: it was the Wednesday night the Boston Red Sox won the World Series!! We heard it over the radio as the four of us moved in all the furniture and boxes in all by our lonesome! I slept on a mattress with no sheets, but I slept like a baby that night.