Personal History #14 - My Bedroom
Describe your room as a child. Did you have your own room or have to share it with a sibling? Tell some experiences.
I shared a room for all but one month of my childhood. Usually, I shared a room with my older sister, Lindy. Sometimes, this was a lot of fun. We would stay up late talking. We would play games together. On the days that we had to good clean our bedrooms, we would do puppet shows for each other, using the end of our bunk bed as a stage. (The bed was pulled away from the wall so we could change the sheets... It probably took a lot longer than it needed to.)
One night after bedtime, we were playing a game, trying to scare each other. At one point I left the room to use the bathroom or something, and when I came back, I thought that Lindy had given up the game and gone to sleep. I got in my bed and tried to go to sleep myself. Just as I was drifting off, someone reached out from the little space between the edge of my bed and the wall (I think I was sleeping on the top bunk of the bed at the time) and grabbed me. I screamed!!! While I had been gone, my sister had climbed onto my bed and waited for just the right moment. My parents weren't very happy about this episode... I think one of them heard my scream and got out of the shower to see what horrible thing had happened.)
The first bedroom I can remember was the front bedroom of the little yellow house. (See here for a floor plan and description of that house.) This was where the puppet shows on the bunk bed took place. I remember pink wall paper with dark pink stripes and maybe a flowery pattern on it. I remember frilly curtains. Most of the house had dark green shag carpet, and I think my bedroom did too. We had the bunk beds that could separate into individual beds, and we had a toy box with sliding chalkboard doors and shelves above. (I was once playing with Lincoln Logs on the top of this toy box when there was an earthquake.)
For a short time, I remember being in the bedroom that in the remodel became the family room. At that time I think I shared it with my brother Jarom who was still a baby in a crib. I remember singing him lullabies one night to help him get to sleep.
After the remodel, my bedroom became the one at the back of the house, across from the master bedroom, and next to the new 2nd bathroom. This was the room where my sister scared me half to death. It had a walk in closet, with a ladder built onto one wall for access to the upper shelves on the other walls. That was a fun closet.
After we moved to Mission Viejo, my room was upstairs, at the end of a hallway with the window facing the backyard. I think at one point I chose to have the walls of this room painted a light peach color, with wallpaper with ribbons crisscrossing it. The closet of this room had sliding mirror doors which was convenient, because my sister and I had become teenagers. I continued to share with my older sister, and by this time, I was getting a little bothered by the fact that she was the oldest, and so she got to make the rules. Our relationship struggled for a while, and so for some brief period of time, I think I switched rooms and shared with my younger sisters in the huge "bonus room" at the front of the house. Later, I had the room at the end of the hall to myself for one blissful month, just after my older sister left to go to college, and before my next oldest sister, Kristy, moved in. This was the only time in my youth that I had my own room. I didn't have my own room again until the six months after I returned home after my mission, and before I got married, when I slept in the "office".
I shared a room for all but one month of my childhood. Usually, I shared a room with my older sister, Lindy. Sometimes, this was a lot of fun. We would stay up late talking. We would play games together. On the days that we had to good clean our bedrooms, we would do puppet shows for each other, using the end of our bunk bed as a stage. (The bed was pulled away from the wall so we could change the sheets... It probably took a lot longer than it needed to.)
One night after bedtime, we were playing a game, trying to scare each other. At one point I left the room to use the bathroom or something, and when I came back, I thought that Lindy had given up the game and gone to sleep. I got in my bed and tried to go to sleep myself. Just as I was drifting off, someone reached out from the little space between the edge of my bed and the wall (I think I was sleeping on the top bunk of the bed at the time) and grabbed me. I screamed!!! While I had been gone, my sister had climbed onto my bed and waited for just the right moment. My parents weren't very happy about this episode... I think one of them heard my scream and got out of the shower to see what horrible thing had happened.)
The first bedroom I can remember was the front bedroom of the little yellow house. (See here for a floor plan and description of that house.) This was where the puppet shows on the bunk bed took place. I remember pink wall paper with dark pink stripes and maybe a flowery pattern on it. I remember frilly curtains. Most of the house had dark green shag carpet, and I think my bedroom did too. We had the bunk beds that could separate into individual beds, and we had a toy box with sliding chalkboard doors and shelves above. (I was once playing with Lincoln Logs on the top of this toy box when there was an earthquake.)
For a short time, I remember being in the bedroom that in the remodel became the family room. At that time I think I shared it with my brother Jarom who was still a baby in a crib. I remember singing him lullabies one night to help him get to sleep.
After the remodel, my bedroom became the one at the back of the house, across from the master bedroom, and next to the new 2nd bathroom. This was the room where my sister scared me half to death. It had a walk in closet, with a ladder built onto one wall for access to the upper shelves on the other walls. That was a fun closet.
After we moved to Mission Viejo, my room was upstairs, at the end of a hallway with the window facing the backyard. I think at one point I chose to have the walls of this room painted a light peach color, with wallpaper with ribbons crisscrossing it. The closet of this room had sliding mirror doors which was convenient, because my sister and I had become teenagers. I continued to share with my older sister, and by this time, I was getting a little bothered by the fact that she was the oldest, and so she got to make the rules. Our relationship struggled for a while, and so for some brief period of time, I think I switched rooms and shared with my younger sisters in the huge "bonus room" at the front of the house. Later, I had the room at the end of the hall to myself for one blissful month, just after my older sister left to go to college, and before my next oldest sister, Kristy, moved in. This was the only time in my youth that I had my own room. I didn't have my own room again until the six months after I returned home after my mission, and before I got married, when I slept in the "office".
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