LIFE AT TRACEY SPEED: THE LINCOLN HOUSE

Here is the home I grew up in. My parents bought this place after they had 4 children. They bought it from the town doctor who used the smaller area, to the right, as his doctor's office.

It only has a one car garage, but we only had one car, so it worked out. The door you see in the front, we, very seldom, ever even used. It was opened in the summer for some air flow, but the main door we used was around the left corner, by the garage, that led into the mud room and the kitchen. There were two closets in that front door area (the one we never used) for storing winter coats and such, but other then that and a little ventilation, it wasn't used.

We have a very modern kitchen now, but this is only because this entire area had to be remodeled after a pipe burst in the upstairs bathroom and rained down for 3 days before anyone caught it. Thank God for homeowner's insurance.

There used to be a wall between the kitchen and this dinning room, which was never a dining room when I was a kid. It was our playroom. My dad built all the boxes over the windows and my mother did all the wallpaper.

This is the living room, which looks different now too. We had it arranged with a tv on the wall that has the two couches. We only had one couch and two chairs.

Also on the bottom floor is this bath, which was only a half bath growing up, but since the renovation has a shower too.

There is also a den, a sewing room and screened in porch on this floor. Below is a full basement with a recreation room, the furnace room, the laundry room and a cold storage room.

On the second floor is this hallway with three bedrooms and a bath branching off from it.

Here is my parents bedroom.

This is the bathroom that had the pipe burst and destroyed the kitchen below. The only things that are new in this room are the vanity and the floor. Growing up, this was the only bath with a shower. Pretty interested when there are 9 people getting ready in the morning.

This was originally my Grandmother's room. She had a small bed where the larger bed is, a rocker by the window and her own tv.

This was my bedroom. Originally there were two small beds for my sister and I and a large desk.

Finally, after you climb one more flight of stairs you come to this large open area that we called "the attic." There are actually two rooms. One is a small storage area and the other is this area where my brothers slept.

After my parents moved to New Mexico, we wanted to keep it in the family, so we turned it in to an LLC and rent it out to skiers in the winter. Check out this link: LINCOLN HOUSE RENTAL.

The outside looks different now then when I was a kid too. Next to the front door were two, tall, thin pine trees...

.... and along the front of the house below the windows were bushes. In the front yard, actually obscuring a great portion of the house, were two huge pine trees too.

We would get so much snow in the winter that my Dad would have to use a long pole (like the one pictured above) and pull the snow off the roof, so the roof wouldn't get damaged. After many winters of this task and from the snow just melting and falling off, all the plants next to the house were basically ruined and were eventually removed. Then after a wind storm, when I was in middle school, the two large pine trees were blown over. I actually remember climbing in the branches and making a fort and coming out with pitch all over my clothes and hands. The other big difference, cosmetically, is that my Dad had built a deck on to the right end of the house, which has now been taken off.

The smaller section of house (on the right) is a one bedroom, one bath apartment where my Grandfather lived for a time. After he passed away we used the main area for storage, the kitchen for extra storage of food and the bedroom was my Dad's insurance office.