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**I could only find pictures of one of the rooms that I describe here, so I scattered pictures of that room throughout the descriptions of the others**

Through the kitchen was the opening to the hallway. I loved grandma’s hall. She kept giant bullion boards filled with pictures. She had an assortment of pictures old and new that she rotated and changed regularly. I must have spent hours in her hall just looking at pictures. She had framed pictures of all of her children when they were young and of all of their families as they got older. I loved to see how everyone grew and changed and to find treasures among the old pictures. It was fun to find pictures of my family scattered about in her collection. She had a wall hanging in the hall that listed all the birthdays in the family by month I used to study it to find out whose birthdays were close to mine and to see who had been added most recently.

The first door in the hallway belonged to grandma’s ‘fancy’ living room. I can’t exactly remember what she called it, perhaps her front room? This room exemplified grandma’s artistic side. I’ll do my best to describe it, but I might be a little off so if you know it better, please correct me. As you walked in from the kitchen there was dark tile and a nearly (maybe 75%) life sized statue of a man and woman (or was it just a woman) with big leafy plants all around. I imagine the sound of a waterfall, but I can’t actually remember if there was a waterfall. There were half walls with decorative wood  (what’s the word I want?) pieces that connected up to the ceiling. The front door was located in this room and the half walls divided the entryway which had tile, from the rest of the room. The main part of the room was carpeted with an upright piano on the far wall, bright blue velvety chairs, and a patterned couch. There were end tables with lamps, hanging plants, and a chess set with bright blue pieces. The big front window was hung with curtains (a sheer curtain with gold tasseled curtains gathered at the sides). The room was decorated with plants and paintings on the wall. She kept an assortment of ceramics along the half wall. In the middle of the room was a long wooden coffee table with sliding wooden doors on the sides where grandma kept all of her picture books. I loved to look at the picture books—perhaps it was my grandma who inspired my love of pictures, I thought it was a special treat to go into her front room to look at pictures.

The next room was grandpa’s office. I don’t remember this room well, but I remember a closet, a big black chair, and a picture of grandpa shaking hands with someone on the wall. I think when grandpa had a computer it was in this room.

At the end of the hall was a linen closet with bedroom doors on either side. The right side was grandma’s room and the left side was a spare bedroom. The room that I stayed in most was the room across from grandma’s room. She named all the rooms by the color of the carpet and oddly enough, I can’t remember the color of the  carpet in this room. The room had a full size bed with bookshelf bed frame at the end of the bed. The bed was next to the wall with a big window at the foot of the bed. There was an old sewing machine next to the bed and a closet on the wall by the door. There was a small closet with shelves directly behind the door and next to the closet was a large cedar chest. Next to the ceader chest was a door to the bathroom. The bathroom had a toilet, sink, shower, and window. I remember one summer in particular when I stayed in this room that I meticulously stacked the pillows from the bed at night and neatly cleaned the room and made the bed each day. Grandma praised me repeatedly for this practice I remember the pride I felt as grandma told someone how impressed she was with me.