sheilaincali
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Post by sheilaincali on Aug 22, 2013 9:06:07 GMT -5
I started calling ahead of visits and knocking and waiting at the front door when I moved out of my parent's home. My mom hates people just dropping in without notice. My dad hated me knocking when we had a perfectly good door bell and he finally got me switched to the door bell. I admit I was unhappy that they sold my childhood home even though I had already moved out. They are in their third home since that move, and I am getting used to this one but it's not home like the original one was. Really nothing has duplicated that "at home" feeling for me; not the house I bought on my own nor my husband's house that I live in now. My siblings all have keys to the house and garage door openers. They just barge right on in whenever they feel like it but I just can't bring myself to do that. Even when we are invited over for dinner or something and they are expecting us I still ring the doorbell. I was fine with them selling the old house I just didn't expect the new one to feel so foreign and off to me. Some of it is probably that my parents have replaced all of the furniture when they moved. NOTHING from the old house made it into the new house except clothes and things like that but none of the furniture made the move.
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jeffreymo
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Post by jeffreymo on Aug 22, 2013 9:08:47 GMT -5
Myself and some college roommates were back on campus for a football game and found parking by our old apartment. We decided to go see if the current tenant would let us look around. Our 5 BR all guys apt was now a 3 BR all girls apt. Of course it was much more clean than we remembered it . It wasn't the same we remembered. We were jealous of all the changes that were made to it.
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michelyn8
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Post by michelyn8 on Aug 22, 2013 9:19:23 GMT -5
I grew up in 2 houses. One from birth to age 8 (moved on my birthday) and the second until I was 19 or so. Both have been on the market in the last 5 years and I really wished I had taken that opportunity to do a walk thru. I would love to see what the owners after my family have done with both places.
I occasionally drive through both neighborhoods and the second house hasn't changed all that much. The second house was a new subdivision when we moved in and its neat to see how big the trees and shrubs my mother planted have grown.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2013 9:31:52 GMT -5
We've also had a little bit of the opposite happening with our current home. It used to belong to a prominent local teacher. Even though we've owned it for 18 years, it's still referred to it as Mrs Xxxxxx's house. They had three boys and nearly every local contractor who has come to the house to give an estimate has been here before. It's been an interesting experience because she was known as "tough but fair" and I think they think I'm the same. Works for me!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2013 9:38:54 GMT -5
Visited a small stone house that my g-pa and uncle built in the 40s. Saw the present owner in the yard and talked to her a bit. She invited us in and they have decorated it in the mid 50s style complete with black and white tile floors. Looked real nice and I was grateful to see it. Being in the desert the stone walls are about 10 inches thick. Do you have a picture of the house? I would love to see it. You can upload to photobucket and anonymize it. There are a number of stone cabins in the area north of our old house. This is when folks would come to the dude ranches in Cave Creek or over in 7 Springs to escape from Phoenix's heat (prior to A/C). Over time people have added on. I think they are delightful.
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Chocolate Lover
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Post by Chocolate Lover on Aug 22, 2013 11:40:02 GMT -5
I drive by the house I grew up in all the time during the school year. I think they uglied up the exterior but they probably made the interior better. I've never stopped. I'm afraid I'll yell at them for cutting down the giant gardenia I loved so much. And the azaleas and...... oh, enclosing the garage and not having the siding color of that match the trim on the rest of the house. It's a brick house, there wouldn't be that much painting involved in making it match. I did get to see the house my parents built not long after I moved out last weekend. It's for sale, and my sister is entertaining the idea of buying. My parents lived there about 10 years, so I got used to it but, like Sheila, it wasn't "home". I sure wish I had the money to buy it, it's just the right size for my house full of kids, but I know it's more than I can afford. As my DS said after we visited, Mimi sure can design a house. It was her floor plan
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kittensaver
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We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. - Mother Teresa
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Post by kittensaver on Aug 22, 2013 13:35:12 GMT -5
I've driven by the family home where I grew up - but I didn't stop and ask to go in! It's basically unrecognizable now - it has been extensively remodeled, re-faced and re-landscaped. Different neighborhood, different time. So much for nostalgia. About a year after we bought our current house, the family who owned it before us stopped by to trick-or-treat on Halloween. The little boy in the family REALLY REALLY wanted to see his old room, so I let him. They are nice people so there was no reason not to. I don't know what he was expecting (!), but he was very disappointed because I had changed to room significantly (tore off the wallpaper, new paint, new beadboard/chair railing, new window coverings). I think I destroyed (or at least damaged) one of his childhood memories
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sesfw
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Today is the first day of the rest of my life
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Post by sesfw on Aug 22, 2013 13:41:14 GMT -5
'Do you have a picture of the house? I would love to see it.'
I have a couple of pictures but don't have to talent to get one here. In this area I'm computer illiterate. It's in Kingman AZ on Gold Ave by Stowell Street, if you have google earth and look it up. On the west side of Kingman but on east of I40.
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Aug 22, 2013 14:05:42 GMT -5
I've done a drive by one or twice. Inviting yourself in is beyond rude, not to mention a good way to get yourself shot.
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lexxy703
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Post by lexxy703 on Aug 22, 2013 14:34:13 GMT -5
I have done a drive by of one house. The original owners of my current home came by once to pick up a gift that had been sent to my house. I invited them in to see what I had done to the place. It was a short visit but friendly.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2013 14:38:28 GMT -5
I've driven by homes that I previously lived in....but I would never actually go up to the door and check to see if I could "walk through the old stomping grounds" again.
I've seen people get mad that the new owners changed something that they absolutely loved because it held some kind of BS sentimental value. You moved for a reason. Let it go.
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Peace Of Mind
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[font color="#8f2520"]~ Drinks Well With Others ~[/font]
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Post by Peace Of Mind on Aug 22, 2013 17:58:11 GMT -5
I love going by old homes that I had as an adult but especially when we were kids. My parents did that once after we came back to the states. Step Dad retired in the state that we lived previously and it was close to where we lived as little kids. We'd beg to go back and look at it. It was a huge 5 bedroom 5 bath on Chesapeake Bay, MD with lots of acreage, etc. We called it "The white house". It was white and did not resemble the real one in any way. They finally did it once and regretted it because we kept wanting to do it again. Such great memories there and it was before my parents marriage got nuts. Actually - it wasn't before they got nuts. It was always nuts. But more good back then.
They would never knock on somebody's door though. We asked them to do that at that house and they said it would be rude. As an adult I would never do that. But if somebody was outside and acted friendly while we drove by I probably would mention that we lived there hoping they'd offer.
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Anne_in_VA
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Post by Anne_in_VA on Aug 22, 2013 18:49:20 GMT -5
I once lived with my grandparents when I was a child and we drove by it a couple of times before I moved to VA. It used to be in a rural area that grew up around it and then went commercial so there was a trucking company that bought it when my grandma sold it after g'pa died. It sure looked a lot smaller than I remembered it and all of my grandpa's bushes and trees were gone. My sister told me recently that it's now been torn down, so I won't go back there again.
I did drive by the first house I bought with my ex and didn't even recognize the neighborhood it had changed so much. That house was only about 800 sf, but it sure felt bigger to us.
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Nazgul Girl
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Babysitting our new grandbaby 3 days a week !
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Post by Nazgul Girl on Aug 22, 2013 19:45:33 GMT -5
My mom and dad built the Frank LLoyd Wright style contemporary home that we grew up in. We lived there all through my childhood and teen years, and I had the joy of bringing my DD to the house after she was born. Mom and Dad were still married, and it was a wondeful time.
The house was sold after their divorce. Mom had tried to keep it up, but it's on four acres and a lake, and it was just too much for her. Plus, she started having break-ins. Now, it's been remodeled, but you can still see the outlines of the old house there. There are so many happy memories. Once in awhile, I just drive up the long driveway, sit there in the car, and look at it. Then, I turn around and drive back to my life now. It's very wistful for me. My sister takes my father for boatrides on the lake, and he gets a thrill out of riding past the house from the front. They built every stick and brick of the place themselves. He still has a tremendous lot of memories tied up in it.
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mollyanna58
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Post by mollyanna58 on Aug 22, 2013 20:10:12 GMT -5
When my sister was looking for a house some years back, our parents' first house was on the market, and we looked at it. Sis was born after our parents had moved to their current home so she had never been in it before then. It had such a tiny kitchen! It was a cape cod with a raised roof so it had a full second floor, which my father gradually finished. The bathroom upstairs wasn't finished until just before they put it on the market.
I bought my house from an elderly woman who didn't come to the closing, so I never met her. A few years later she stopped by the house when a different sister was there and asked if she could see it. Sister wasn't comfortable letting a stranger into the house, but did let her look around the garden.
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NoNamePerson
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Is There Anybody OUT There?
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Post by NoNamePerson on Aug 22, 2013 20:19:41 GMT -5
I had occasion to go thru the neighborhood where the last house EX and I built is. They have painted it brown and it looks like a big turd sitting in the middle of an acre
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whoami
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Post by whoami on Aug 23, 2013 0:30:47 GMT -5
Oh yes. I think I do a drive-by of the house I grew up in every time I visit San Diego. My parents bought the house in 1963. My parents divorced in 1995 or 1996 and my father sold the house to my brother. He lost the house in foreclosure in 2010. It's hard to believe but I do think it looks worse than when he owned it. Weeds are waist high and I don't see any real progress. DH inherited the house where he grew up in San Diego. Walking into the house is a trip back to the 60s. His mother was "frugal" and did virtually no updating so everything looks incredibly dated inside the house. Its a typical middle class neighborhood where the houses run between $450k to $550k. To me, many of the houses look like dumps. The majority of the yards look like crap and there is apparently a major gopher problem in the neighborhood.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 9:54:55 GMT -5
whoami, The neighborhood where I went to secondary schooling, Clairemont, could be what you described. And if you were to visit us here in the Bay Area you could add $100k and get the same result. The thing that always has me puzzled is what is so valuable in those garages that you would leave a vehicle worth tens of thousands of dollars to rust in the ocean air? ETA: I should say that my parents NEVER parked their cars in their two car garage because my father had his train layout in the garage. They even went so far as to build a second story addition so he could relocate his stuff upstairs. It never happened. Instead he filled it with old TV sets, desks from the real estate offices where they worked at et cetera. For sure both DH have some pack-rat in us but I do make an effort to jettison some stuff with every move.
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whoami
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Post by whoami on Aug 23, 2013 12:32:44 GMT -5
whoami, The neighborhood where I went to secondary schooling, Clairemont, could be what you described. And if you were to visit us here in the Bay Area you could add $100k and get the same result. The thing that always has me puzzled is what is so valuable in those garages that you would leave a vehicle worth tens of thousands of dollars to rust in the ocean air? ETA: I should say that my parents NEVER parked their cars in their two car garage because my father had his train layout in the garage. They even went so far as to build a second story addition so he could relocate his stuff upstairs. It never happened. Instead he filled it with old TV sets, desks from the real estate offices where they worked at et cetera. For sure both DH have some pack-rat in us but I do make an effort to jettison some stuff with every move. LOL....the house is in Clairemont. We would have to drive up to Torrey Bluffs (not sure if that's an area or the subdivision) before we would even begin to touch anything that resembles where we currently live....and those houses run $1.5M. I find it amazing that the Clairemont house is "worth" more than mine, yet my house resembles the $1.5M house both cosmetically/fixture and size wise. I have no idea what DH is going to do with it yet.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2013 13:33:58 GMT -5
whoami, I sent you a PM. Also I should add, even though the housing stock in Clairemont is pretty old mid 50s for most, the location is wonderful to get around San Diego. We have friends who chose to do a tear-down in Serra Mesa near Sharp Hospital who could have easily done the N. County or march up I-15 with ever more upscale homes. 20 years later with the babybirds having left the nest, they look brilliant with easy access to downtown, the beaches, and even East County. Our friends who did the upscale remodel in "Olde Cardiff" couldn't hack the commute, sold their $1+M house in 2010 and moved back into their crappy little East U.C. rental. Once again it's location, location, location.
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