When we first moved into our house on West Park Street in 1969, my sister and I slept in the south bedroom upstairs which was dark with paneling. Outside the windows was the porch roof on which I daringly sat a few times, but never without my parents knowledge -- maybe. And, that would have been after we moved to the north bedroom and it belonged to my brothers. The middle bedroom was Dad's "study", in there he had the chaise lounge we loved to lay on, and his TV. It was that year, that we watched the moon landing. When that room was turned into Mom and Dad's room, Dad having moved his books and TV to the basement, we chose the north bedroom. I think we chose it only because it was not the room we were currently in. My brothers used the south bedroom after they were born anyway, which was after 1969.
The only way to get into the upstairs bathroom was through that north bedroom, so Dad took out the door, closed in the wall and made a door in the room we called "the kitchen" because at one time the upstairs was a separate apartment and that was the kitchen. (The sink and cupboards were still there, and we used it for storage and a playroom) Mom let my sister and I pick the carpet and paint colors. We chose gold high/low carpet and lavender paint. Our dressers were painted purple and Mom or Dad made bulletin boards painted lavender with purple trim. When we got along we put our beds together, when we weren't we made an imaginary line down the middle. There were two closets in that room. One was the product of the door removal and was a small ordinary sized closet. The other one was big enough for me to get all the way in for a private space. Eventually, I wanted a shelf, desk height, so my sister and I walked to the "lumber yard" 3 1/2 blocks away, and carried away a 1 x 12, after charging it. I don't know how long it was, 8 ft. maybe, with me on one end and my sister on the other, we carried it between us all the way home. That board made more shelves than the desk and when I was feeling like I needed to be by myself I would work in that closet.
When I was a girl I was enchanted by stories of the pioneers and wished long dresses were "in." In the 70s, mini skirts were out and our skirts fell just below the knee. If Mom didn't make our clothes, we wore hand-me-downs. I had a long skirt made out of quilted material. It was long and just right for wearing in that closet in the cold upstairs. One winter mom made us "night caps" to wear with our long flannel nightgowns. Eventually, I suppose we grew out of flannel nightgowns, but they were warm on cold nights.
The upstairs in our house ran on a different thermostat than the downstairs and it was kept at 55 degrees in the winter. Hot water radiators make the best heat, but it takes time to heat up. There were times when we'd turn up the heat to warm up our pillows and blankets before turning it down again and snuggling under our pile of heavy quilts for the night.
