Shantel's Ephraim House

My brother Matthew just sent me a link saying that our old house in Ephraim is up for sale. It was fun to look through the pictures and remember what it looked like when WE lived there. My dad's fingerprints are all over that house and it's so neat to see his lasting impact. I pulled all of the pictures off of their listing so I could post about them and remember. 

This house. 240 E 300 North 28-7

(The 28-7 was our mailbox code. We walked to the corner to get the mail.) 

I lived here from when I was about 5 until I was 17. Basically all of my growing up memories are in this home. The backyard was a PERFECT childhood backyard. It was large, had two big trees, a big garden, and lots of grass. Nothing was especially manicured or fancy, but we LOVED it. My dad built us this two-story playhouse with a deck off the back. He installed a giant sandbox wrapping from the little house all around the big tree next to it. We had a swing set there in the sandbox under the tree. I remember running with our dog Sparky around the yard, around and around the trampoline. We played in the sandbox for hours. When I got older, my friends and I used my family's old-school video camera to record our own TV show "XYZ news". There is a big lot attached to the back of our yard and when I was about 10 we bought the lot (to prevent a business from building apartments for Snow College back there). It was the best extension of our back yard. It was weedy and muddy, and once when we got a little kid-size motorcycle my dad built a track that we could ride it around.

It was the best childhood. 

The little window you can see through the tree in the picture on the left above is right above the kitchen sink. My dad would sometimes get the sink sprayer, open the window, and spray me and my friends who were playing on the patio. We loved it. It made us laugh and laugh. 

The Kitchen
I remember dancing with my mom to Shania Twain songs (maybe Man, I feel like a Woman?) in this kitchen while holding the broom. I don't know why that memory stands out so much, but it makes me smile. I also remember countless lunches, dinners, and snacks fed at our big oval oak table. Some of my favorite memories: little black plates that were separated into three sections with high walls (as an adult I suspect that they were old freezer meal trays, ha) with different types of food appropriately separated, rainbow toast (bread served with colored milk and cotton swabs that we got to decorate and then my mom toasted), and our assigned seats at dinner (everyone sat at the same place every single night). 

My Dad laid the tile in the kitchen and the hard wood in the entry. We had our piano where that bench was in the entry. My piano teacher lived right across the street and I would get up at 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings to cross the street in the dark and go to Piano Lessons. 

This is part of the addition on the side of the house. The carport. Bet you can't guess what I'm going to say? Yep. My dad built the carport/addition. When we moved it it wasn't there at all. Man, my dad is amazing. He also built a big bench to go along the side that fit laundry baskets underneath for our shoes and things. 

Things not pictured? The basement with it's big main area filled with wood paneling (installed, and loved, by my dad). My purple (sponged over with white) walls in my bedroom. Before we had the mudroom/addition the laundry room was in the basement and there was a laundry shoot in the bathroom. It was the best. We just threw our dirty things down the chute and magically they got cleaned and put back in our rooms (ha!).

I loved this house. Looking at these pictures reminds me how much love my parents put into our childhood. I was surrounded by good friends, lots of outdoor space, and a family that still means the world to me.