Home: Those Places Thursday; 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History

front of 8015 Sharpview, Houston, Texas, in 1985

The 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History prompt for Week 4 is Home:

Describe the house in which you grew up. Was it big or small? What made it unique? Is it still there today?

The house where I did most of my growing up was 8015 Sharpview, Houston, Texas, in the Sharpstown area on the southwest side of the city.  We moved into the neighborhood in the summer of 1964, when I was seven years old.  It was a brand-new house in a growing neighborhood.  I remember Dad having to plant grass, and having no fence and no trees at first.

The house wasn't especially unique for its time, at least not initially.  Sometime after we moved in, my parents painted all the exterior wood trim a pale orange.  They also spelled out the address on the front of the house, rather than using numbers:

When we moved into the home, my parents were expecting their fifth child, and this house was a step up in size from our previous home - four bedrooms instead of three.  Later, sometime after my maternal grandfather passed away in 1967, my parents used some of the inheritance to add a new master bedroom onto the  back of the house.  (See below--the original brick of the house was no longer available so the brick of the addition doesn't match.)  The former master bedroom was made into a hall (to the new master) and into a new bedroom, so my sister Karen and I were able to have separate bedrooms. 

back of 8015 Sharpview, Houston, Texas, in 1985

My parents lived in this house through the summer of 1985, when Dad was transferred to the Dallas area.   The house was still there a few years ago when I visited Houston, and (from what I can see) the house looks much the same in Google Maps.  The tree out front (on the left) is HUGE now.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.