Recently I found out that the house my family lived in before we moved to Flagstaff was for sale. I was born in Flagstaff, then my family moved to Mesa for a few years then back to Flagstaff. This is where my earliest childhood memories begin.
The house was vacant, I asked Curtis to take me through with his lockbox key.
Although we have lived within 20 miles of this house for about 20 years and even been nearby at times when we had been in Mesa for one reason or another. I have never been back to this house since my family moved away in 1977. I was four years old when we left. I didn't know the address. I had asked my brothers a few times what the address was, but then I didn't get back to it and had lost the address again.
I loved going back to visit. It has been redone to more modern colors. The 1970's golds and browns had been changed to a modern gray color scheme, which is very popular right now.
The tile in the bathrooms was the same blue in the hall closet, green in the master. My mom preferred wallpaper to paint (I don't know why) All the 70's wallpaper has been removed, changed to neutral colors. The paneling from the family room removed and cabinets updated.
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| We used to have a portable dishwasher sitting at the end of the cabinets here. |
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| Kitchen in 2018 |
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| Kitchen of the Mesa house in 1976 |
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| Gold shag carpet has been changed to hardwood floors. |
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| You can see a hint of the old paneling on the beam. The rest has been painted over. I believe this carpet used to be dark brown. |
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| The big tree was removed and the pool was added where we had our garden |
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| Original Blue tile in the
Master bath. Gold wallpaper was removed |
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| I thought this tile was blue also, maybe not. I do remember my mom painting this bathroom blue, I kept putting my little hands in wet paint. |
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| Original green tile in Master bath. |
Master bedroom. Walking in the closet brought back memories of watching view master slides in there
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| This was my two brothers room they shared. It had wood shutters back then, not sure if these are the original. They look pretty good for 40 years. |
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| This was my bedroom. It seemed to have a red carpet with some bright colored red and blue floral wallpaper. I think lacy curtains. I slept in a crib until we moved to Flagstaff. It was a big deal that I was going to get a big girl bed in the new house. |
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| The pool, where there was a garden. I remember always asking my dad for a pool he always said "no they're dangerous" yet we still went swimming often at the community pool. |
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| The front looks the same, except it used to be yellow and white |
The house seemed smaller than I remembered. It was about 1600 feet, our Flagstaff house was 2200.
Overall the house and neighborhood were still in good condition. Funny thing...when Curtis started driving down the neighborhood street to take me to this house he said: "oh I sold a house on this street." We pulled up and it was the house directly across the street from my childhood home, that he sold. We had no idea at the time because I didn't know the address back then.
If our numbers are correct, it seems our parents bought this home for about $30,000, sold it for $33,000 in 1977. I remember they had a difficult time selling and had to keep lowering the price, and even changed realtors. This was a time when interest rates were really high, I don't think the economy was great. My dad had started his new job in Williams, AZ and lived temporarily in my grandparent's camper while we stayed in Mesa waiting for the home to sell. This home just sold for $239,000 in April 2018.
