Is there anything from your childhood home (a piece of decor, say) that stands out in your mind (for whatever reason), when thinking back?

The girl next door?

There are a number of things like that, but now that my parents have downsized from the big family house to a two-bedroom apartment, most of them are in my house currently.

My favorite thing of all is my great grandfather’s Ansonia mantle clock, which is now on my mantle.

Yes, this massive peach-colored conch shell belonging to my mother. I hope I find it someday. The other thing that stands out is this little statue of a naked women with her head on her knees, which is now in my home.

Those glass grapes (round balls) from the 70’s. My grandma’s were green. They make me laugh everytime I see them

This hallway at my old house, because I used to sleep in the hallway with a big pile of picture books, I can still see the hallway and the wall I would stare at as I waited for the morning to come.

My parents had this decorative display of dried plants hanging over the stairway. One day, this spikey dried thing fell from the arrangement, right onto the top of my head. It hurt like hell. I will always remember that damn thing. I can’t think of anything else!

I have a more vivid memory of the things in my grandma’s home. She still has all of the same things, but a few of them used to scare me. At the top of her stairs, she hung these two ferocious-looking metal masks. I think they were supposed to look tribal, but as a kid they completely freaked me out. They’d grin at me as I walked upstairs, and I could see them from the spare bed where I slept when I spent the night there. My grandma insisted I sleep with the door open, but I’d always get up at some point and close the door so those masks couldn’t look at me.

We had a little tykes chair that we called ‘the pink chair’ (except it was more like the pinkchair. all one syllable. like that was it’s name or something). It was my older sister’s and was passed on to me but it was really used as more of a family thing. I remember my mom sitting in it, getting ready for work in the mornings. It was a stool. It was a weapon. We had it until my house burned down. I loved that chair just because it was like one of the family.

This past sunday my SO and I went to look at some antique shops, and I found a weather house like the one the old lady who lived next door to me as a child had. They are pretty accurate predicting the weather. If the old hag comes out, it means bad weather is coming, but when the children come out, the weather will be nice. I bought one similar to the one in my link, and so far it has been right everyday!

I started life in a hideous decade: the 50s. To see the crap I grew up with rent the movie Eating Raoul which features mid-century modern in all its excess.

I remember particularly a white milk glass bowl with a fruit design on it and a marble footed bowl with these little removable marble doves (we loved to play with those!).

There are probably about 100, but the one that stands out the most is the one Mom foolishly gave away. It was a beautiful Tiffany Turtle Shell lamp. Our neighbor moved away, and when Mom visited her big old Victorian home, she remarked on how that “ugly old lamp” she had would go with the decor. So she gave it away. I had recently married and moved into my own apartment, but when I found out I was horrified. It was one of the most valuable things Mom had, and she didn’t even know it.

The sheer color of my house stands out the most. Its mint green. Enough said.

Oval framed portrait of my great-great-aunt Nettie
My grandma’s grandfather clock
2 scary ass paintings in our basement- one of a clown and one of a rooster. The rooster stared at you as if it were plotting to peck your brain out through your temples.

@tinyfaery: My grandma had those too!

Yeah… My parents have this lamp made out of a giant shell casing. They put a shade on it with this weird pattern that resembles little explosions. Strangest thing…

Nothing really from inside the house. My mom moved the furniture around at least two times a year, so items got shuffled around quite a bit. We had a pomegranate tree in our backyard that I will never forget. My friends and I would grab a pomegranate, then smash it on the driveway to open them to eat. My mother would get so upset over the stains. They sure were tasty though. It was worth the bitchin.

@jonsblond My grandmother had a pomegranate tree in her back yard. I remember how much the (were they blossoms?) hurt my feet when I would step on them with bare feet. It made playing in the backyard sprinklers a bit painful. But it’s still a pleasant memory.

@tinyfaery I was always barefoot. I know what you are talking about! We loved to see who could spit the seeds the farthest.

I remember the glass door knobs. Why? Because one time I heard my mom coming home, when the keys rattled I ran down the hall to meet her. Just as I reached the door she swung it open and cracked me in the face. Half my face was black and blue and my eye was swollen shut for days. I think I was three.

My Mom had a little ceramic toilet seat wall hanging someone painted and gave her. It hung above the toilet in the master bathroom and it said on it “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.” I recall thinking that thing was dorky even when I was a little kid. She put it in a garage sale when they moved to town. I laughed and told her no one was going to buy it-I was wrong. Someone bought it within the first 20 minutes.

In the (tiny) foyer of our flat was a bench seat where I’d kept my snowboots. It was covered with an orange bench-sized pillow, and I’d sit there late at night writing stories as a tween that may or may not have had anything to do with a naked John Taylor.

Good grief, there are sooo many! Thanks for the question and the trip down memory lane . . .

My dad had these glass carbouys he was using to make wine in the basement. The fermentation process was well along when they exploded sending broken glass and half fermented grapes all over the basement.

My mom had a sign over the back of the toilet in the basement that I didn’t understand at the time. It said “Don’t drink and park, accidents cause people.”

There were the associated visual and smell images associated with my dad’s guns and their cleaning (the long metal rod with the hole in the tip that doubled as a great sword, oil, etc).

The orange canary (aptly named Tang) who lived in a bamboo bird house and sung along while I practiced the piano every day.

The window in my bedroom that opened like a door . . .

A couch, it was a wool type fabric and gray. One of my parents got it in the early 70s and kept it in mint condition until recently when they remodeled their house, purchasing all new furniture. I will never forget that couch, it was the one thing me and my brother were scared to play around (our mom had made that very clear early on).

My candy striped bedsheets and brown glass mugs that my sisters and I used to drink our warm milk and sugar from before we went to bed !!!

@drClaw You reminded me of the furniture my Mom bought when we were young teens. She had taken a job, for the first time in her life.

It was the first brand new she had ever had, because they were very frugal and always bought used. She covered it all with plastic furniture covers. She had a brand new carpet installed in the living room, and there were plastic carpet runners across in front of the couch, and between the dining room and the hall. All the plastic came off when relatives or visitors came over.

We were expected to spend most of our time in the family room in the basement.

My mom had a giant wooden spoon and a giant wooden fork hanging on the wall in the kitchen.

When I asked her why, she told me to go outside and play.

I remember the avacado green phone hanging on the kitchen wall, long spiral twisted cord, and some kind of wooden box hanging around it for mail and keys.

My mother painted Disney charactors on the walls of my childhood bedroom. She’s amazing at drawing cartoons. We lived in a military house at the time and so the general rule was that you could do whatever you wanted (decoration wise) as long as, when you left, it was exactly how it was originally. However, the Navy were happy for us to leave all my mums artwork on the walls of my bedroom :)

-we had these troll christmas stockings when i was little… /=
-and something like this puppet
-and my mum made these really awesome pictures. she had mylar or foil or something in the picture frame, and she’d painted on the glass pictures of disney characters, a cow, and a few other things. i loved them (: