Tag Archives: teenager

52 weeks of Personal Genealogy/ Week 19 Childhood bedroom.. (really?)

“I am too young to work so hard!” said when told to clean my room when I was about four years old!  Having said that I think I will discuss window treatments, size of the rooms etc and not the condition in which I kept them most of the time~it’s a sad, sad thing!

The first bedroom I recall was in the apartment in Scottsdale AZ. Yes that would be the one I complained about working so hard at cleaning up. In my mind’s eye  I don’t see much of a mess, just me complaining and feeling put upon that I should clean my mess, what a concept! I shared this room with my little sister, 4 yrs my jr so at that point it was all my mess and none of hers. We would share a few more rooms before the “duration” was over.  A few not so fun things happened in that room, most of them surrounding my sister.  She liked to sleep on the floor and she slept on the bottom bunk, so it was nothing for her to climb down on to the floor and curl up and go to sleep, well one night I proceeded to fall out of the top bunk and the poor thing got smushed. Other then getting woken up abruptly I don’t believe  there were any injuries. I don’t recall to much of the incident, I must have slept through it ! The second thing was she figured out that Santa didn’t decorate the Christmas tree while she was sleeping. For further explanations visit Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.

We moved to Michigan when I was eight years old and in the new house I had a room all to myself. I really liked that, even thought it wasn’t in my room I had my very own closet, I felt so grown up! I would like to report that I kept it spotless but I didn’t.  It was a long narrow room the smallest of two rooms upstairs. I have for some reason, just realized Trish had the bigger of the two rooms, which must have been fine with me.  I must admit I was not a nice sister, Trish would have a bad dream and come and ask to sleep with me and she was relegated to the foot of the bed. It’s a wonder I am willing to share a bed with my spouse! I am not sure how many years I had that room, at least a couple when Dad decided to make their bedroom downstairs an office thus I joined my sister in the bigger room.  The house was a bungalow which had a dormer on the back, so one side of the room had a low slanting ceiling and the side was high and flat. Sometimes we had our beds as bunk beds build under the higher roof and sometimes we had our beds separated and the room kinda split in half.  We had a cat that would come and go out our back window, shhhhhhhhhhhhh don’t tell Dad! She would climb the tree next door jump on the roof and ask to come in and we would let her out the same way.  We had several litters, a few that didn’t make it. It is always fun to wake to a wee kitten batting at your eyes.

We painted that room a nice lavender and put up what were probably kitchen curtains, but they were airy and flower. Those curtains fit the bill whether they were kitchen curtains!  I recall in I took home design in 8th grade and had to do a floor plan and decorating plan for my bedroom, I was upset that I only got a C, wonder if she knew I just put down how we had our room. I have since viewed  many plans for dormer rooms and what I could have done with that room would have been fun! I would have probably gotten an A if I had even tried. So that is how it goes with grades.

That room had beautiful hardwood floors, I think, or was it a carpet of clothes? I guess those clothes kept the floors nice and pretty! There was always a fuss about whose mess it was, indeed it was “ours” but neither one of us wanted to admit that we had contributed in any way. Have some very fond memories of sharing that room with my sister and some not so good, but I would rather ponder on the fond memories.  How many kids do you know that get called down stairs to get a spanking and then proceed to go upstairs and argue about who Dad spanked harder. Such was life in our little room.

The next room was one that I shared with my new husband it was in a rental, we were there only a year or so.

There have been three bedrooms since then one in a mobile home, which we finally grew out of. 6 people in a 14 x 74 mobile home can you say sardine? There were three bedrooms, but they were not very big.  There are lots of memories of that bedroom, 4 babies brought home to spend a few months with us in that room before being put in their own rooms. Lil ones playing on the bed with Daddy. Visits in the wee hours of the night because they had a bad dream. I was much nicer to them then my sister. I did let them sleep on a pillow between Daddy and I, no foot of the bed for them. Although still liking my sleep very much, they were quietly taken back to their beds when they were asleep, they didn’t very often  spend the night with us.

We moved to a new house when the last two were still pretty young 5 and 3 if I recall right. We took the smallest room for two reasons, with four kids they needed the two bigger rooms and the smallest room had once been an office and had a door to the outside world in it. I wasn’t willing to put teenagers or wee little people in that room so it became ours for a good many years. With most of the kids gone we now have the master bedroom. Don’t tell any one, but it’s not clean either.  It’s not like the days of childhood, but you will find the bed not made (why bother it will just get unmade at night ) and the dresser full of stuff and maybe a few clothes on the floor. Pssst but it’s not my mess it’s hubbies!

Happy Hunting!