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The door that we used most to go in and out of Grandma’s house was probably the back sliding door. As you walked in the door you were instantly surrounded by the dark wood paneling that covered the walls. There was a stone wall to the left with a fireplace and a stone ledge in front of the fireplace. In the corner where the stone wall met the wall with wall of the sliding door was grandma’s TV. It was the  kind that had a door that could cover it and big built in speakers. Grandma had a big collection of VHS movies that she had taped off of television. My family didn’t get cable television until after I was married, so it was always amazing to me that I could watch a cartoon any time of the day at Grandma’s house. I thought Nickelodeon was wonderful. The living room furniture was unique. She had a wood coffee table that was rounded and curvy and the chairs and couch had an old log furniture style to them. The couch was made of rounded dark wood pieces that resembled logs with green stripped cushions. Our favorite chairs in her living room were a set of chairs made of curved log style wood with patterned cushions on them. They sat on a rounded base and could turn completely around. We loved to spin on them or spin siblings or cousins on them and I’m sure we were regularly cautioned about spinning them too fast or too recklessly.

The room continued on to the right through a dinning area and a kitchen. Grandma kept a long old record player/stereo that could be played when the lid was lifted along the far wall. I don’t remember her opening it often. Mostly it provided a surface for her collections of decorations. In the winter it held the magnetic ice skating scene and during other parts of the year was decorated with a variety of other items, usually ceramics. On the opposite side of the room was a large piece of fur furniture with a mirror where she stored tablecloths and dishes and other such things and the dinning room table was in the middle.

The living room was divided from the kitchen by a long ‘breakfast bar’ with tall stools along the side. The kitchen had dark wood cupboards that covered most of the walls. She had mushroom wall hangings and mushroom cookie jars in both the kitchen and the living/dinning room. I remember that she kept the breakfast cereal in the corner bottom cupboard between the breakfast bar and the wall with the sink. Someone once told me that grandpa got diabetes from putting too much sugar on his cereal. I always thought of that when I ate cereal for breakfast. You can see the layout of the kitchen from the two accompanying pictures. One year when we came her kitchen had been completely redone with white cupboards and a new convection oven. One year she was given a trash compactor for Christmas which was kept in the place where the kid’s table is in this picture. **Warning, completely random thought to follow: I always thought grandma had the weirdest milk containers. They were square-ish and made of a heavier plastic with thick red plastic loops to pick them up with.