Monday, September 12, 2011

Perfect Design?

Here is the Designer Show House Portland 2011 that opened this weekend. Seventeen designers showcase their ideas in redesigns throughout the Hamlen House on the Western Promenade. The home is open now through October 2. Our house was always open, everyday, all day. This place a 'show house'? I'll tell you what a show house was all about. It was the neighborhood hangout 365 days a year. If it wasn't daily football and baseball games on our homemade fields in the backyard, or basketball games in our driveway, well into the darkness, hockey tournaments with our table-top hockey game, around our kitchen table on cold January days, or 8-10 of us guys tenting out in the backyard with pup tents scattered about, it was the secretive meetings of the Skeleton Club in our cellar once a week that made 820 Stevens the place to be. How did our place end up being the place to be at Morrill's Corner? Was it because the house was big, the yard was spacious or just in a central space? Well, probably it was a little bit of all of those. Throw in kid-frendly parents and you'll probably have the picture. Designer house? No way! A great place to grow up? It was the perfect 'design' for a childhood.


20 comments:

  1. une tres belle maison, j'aime beaucoup l'entrée

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  2. do you suppose this house had any such history as yours had?

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  3. I prefer a house full of kids than one not lived in, too :D

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  4. Your Mother was a saint! You and the neigborhood kids were SO lucky!!

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  5. Whatever you want to call it, Birdman, this house is simply gorgeous.

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  6. I think it looks great on the outside! But I agree, a lived-in "home" with heart beats a fancy decorated "house" anytime. :)

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  7. Another wonderful post with text inspired by your photo. For you, great photos lead to great posts--thanks!

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  8. Bless your parents. They must've been very special people, given the 'open houses' and all the antics you got up to . . .

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  9. I reckon this house could have possibilities Birdman, it's pretty nice and it's the people who create the atmosphere, if the right people moved in and didn't treat it as 'precious'...! It was definitely your parents that created your 'every kid in the neighborhood is welcome' vibe!

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  10. I would have loved to be a kid in your neighborhood... Did you let girls play too?

    Bises,
    Genie

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  11. This house looks like it should be featured in a fairy tale!

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  12. Gee, I would have liked playing with you guys, but I was busy studying . . .

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  13. Such wonderful memories that you have!

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  14. We had a house like that with "kid-friendly" parents in our neighborhood too. Those are wonderful memories you have!

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  15. It does take kid friendly parents.

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  16. My parents where like that plus we had a pool so every was always over. Nice looking house!

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  17. Home for a Hobbit!
    Touching Sept 11 post Bird Man,
    eloquent in simplicity - well done!

    Aloha from Waikiki;


    Comfort Spiral


    > < } } ( ° >



    ><}}(°>

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  18. I think that the current resident is Bilbo Baggins.

    What a glowing description of your childhood. I grew up in an apartment. The hang-outs were on the streets, if they happened.

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