The Book of Me, Prompt 5 - Your Childhood Home

These Book of Me posts are inspired by weekly prompts provided by Julie at Angler's Rest.

This prompt asks to describe my childhood home.

My parents moved into the home I grew up in when mom was still pregnant with me. Perhaps the first neighbors they met were the Royers who lived directly across from us, and live there still. They had a 3 year old daughter, Bethany, who would become my very first friend and someone I would remain in contact with for am entire life.

The house was situated in a small development on a dirt road on Cricket Hill in Hyde Park, Vermont. Growing up, our little development of 9 houses on a dead-end street was only known as a part of Cricket Hill; however, when I was a teenager, the town named the road Gingras Road. Our house was the first house in the development. A row of mailboxes bordered out front yard. Our single story ranch home was grey with black shutters, and later on was painted blue with mauve shutters (I never cared for the mauve  as mom called it. I still say they were pink and made our house look like a dollhouse).

When I was young, we had orange-brown shag carpet throughout the house (thank you 70's). The kitchen appliances were mustard yellow, and the cabinets were a dark wood. When I was older, my parents bought new carpet throughout the house, bought white appliances, and painted the cabinets white. My father built a large, wrap-around deck off from our kitchen, and a smaller deck off from our living room. There were three bedrooms (mine, my brother's, and my parents), 1-1/2 baths, and a large basement. My bedroom was pink for a long time, and later it was lavender and yellow (or was it yellow and then lavender)? When I was a teenage, my grandmother (dad's mom) moved in with us. She got my bedroom and dad built me a room in the basement. It wasn't anything great, but it provided me easy access to come and go through the exterior door just outside my new bedroom (not that I actually had permission to leave).

I first moved out of my childhood home when my parents were first separated. Mom and me moved into an apartment in Hyde Park, then we moved into an apartment in Stowe with Brian, and finally into a house in East Hardwick. I moved back in with my father just before my 2nd semester of my senior year. I moved back in with mom again after graduation and never lived in that house again. Dad sold the house about a decade ago. I have driven by the house periodically. It is now a pretty shade of green and they tore down my father's wrap-around deck (so sad).