Toy Story
One of our readers (hi Keri!) referred to our current house as the older sister of our first house. The Barbie to our previous house’s Skipper if you will (a bit bigger and more mature, but still with that playful happy-go-lucky attitude). LOVE IT. In fact, from that moment on we’ve been referring to the old house as Skipper…
…. and the new one as Barbie (when we’re not calling it “Casa Petersik Dos” of course).
How great is the concept of kissing Barbie by the way? It works so well with the whole “house love” thing. Maybe we should change our tagline to “the house that kisses!” just like the slogan on the Barbie box. Or maybe not. That would be weird.
So there you have some random toy talk on a Thursday morning. Do you guys have nicknames for your old houses (or your current one)? John’s parents call all of their former homes by the street name (ex: “I always loved Apple Grove’s big tub”) while my friend prefers to give them all actual names like Hank, Farrah, and Mitch (she also names her cars). And of course there are people who call their house by the style (ex: “remember Split-Level’s cute kitchen backsplash?”). Let’s all share our house nicknames on this cold almost-Christmas day.
And speaking of Christmas, I’m off to bake some holiday cookies – but stay tuned for our Christmas card featuring none other than sweet Clara and cutie pie Burger hamming it up. This year’s card is totally our. favorite. ever.
Skipper image from here and Kissing Barbie image from here.
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My parents have always called their houses by the street number (but not the street). So it would be something like, “1210 was nice and new, but 1123 has so much character.” I just bought my first house this year, but so far, I just call it “My House.” If and when I move, I’ll probably refer to it by its street name.
We’re super creative and just call ours “Housey” sometimes, but we do refer to my grandparents’ old house by its street name, I think it makes my mom less sad.
Wow! There’s a flashback, I actually had that actual Skipper with the dog. I had completely forgotten it about it until I saw that picture . . .
We call our house the ‘Toadstool’ It has a mansard roof, and the house is square. The outside is all shades of brown, it looks like a little mushroom.
I had that kissing Barbie as a kid… she was great. She made this weird puckering sound when you pushed the button on her back to make her kiss lol. Thanks for the nostalgia!
I call them mostly by the towns they were in. There was:
“My Parents’ house,” “Ithaca,” “Montclair,” “Bedminster” aka “The Condo,” “Grandma’s house,” and “Livingston.” Not very original, but everyone knows what we’re talking about.
We just moved into our ‘new’ place in May, and we’re renovating the entire thing, room to room! We lovingly call this house the ‘cottage’ because it has that feel to it (well, that and the fact that it still has three rooms with wood panelling that makes it feel like a cottage or cabin).
Merry Christmas!
Well, the apartments we lived in, we refer to by the complex name, “Yester Oaks.” Our previous home, a rented single family house, we refer to by the owner’s name – “Beth’s House.” This house (our first purchased home) we will probably refer to by the street name – We live on the corner of Paris and Orleans. The mailbox is on Paris, driveway on Orleans, so it will probably be the Paris House. :) How exotic! ;)
My parents always referred to my house as the Maple Street B&B, which is nice that they thought of visiting me that way. (Maple isn’t the actual street name, by the way…)
Aw, just love it! This is so nostalgic for me.
I had that skipper doll when I was little :) I loved that outfit and her pup!! lol
While we don’t have our house yet, we refer to the houses we tour by street names (probably because that’s the easiest way to go). It does get annoying, however, when the street name is an annoying one, because then that’s all your talking about.
And where’s the love for GI Joes, Sherry? Kissing Barbie? We need “American Flag Saluting GI Joe” to make it fair to all of us here! ;-)
Hey Brandt,
Haha, growing up among four younger boys, I actually played with GI Joes more than Barbies! And Thundercats. Loved them.
xo,
s
We call our current house ‘the misfit’. It is the only one like it in our neighborhood, sticks out like a sore thumb on our street and I had to beg my husband to even walk through it! It’s an older house with lots of quirky details but absolutely perfect for us.
My husband and I are all over the place in this department. We’ve refer to our homes by street name, town, and shape. Baylor, Lansing, and “the barn”. We haven’t named our current home.
… i never thought about it, but we call the house we grew up in, that my mom just recently sold, by the street name… always did call it that…
but her new house, we call it by the town it’s in…
hmmm. so interesting….
OMG I had that exact Skipper Barbie when I was little. LOVE!
I love this. I refer to all the houses I grew up in from toddler through our first place after college as the towns they were in. However our current house is never referred to that way. I think how I give directions sums it up, “…then on the left you’ll see this ugly white house with a few rocks in front. Pull in the driveway after the house. If you go past our really nice garage with the dog and duck shingled into the side of it you’ve gone too far.”
And yes, there is a dog and duck shingled directly into the side of our garage that the fiance did. It looks way cooler than it sounds. We’ve named the dog Shingles and the duck Quackers. How original.
Before we bought our house, we called it the Mandolin House to keep it straight amongst the others we were considering. This was because the street name is REALLY ugly (and also the name of a nearby mental hospital) and because when we toured it, the then-owners gave us an impromptu mandolin concert. But we (unfortunately) do not own a mandolin, so we’ll have to either get one or call it something else. Maybe just “home”?
I HAD THAT SKIPPER DOLL!!! And loved her dearly.
The house my parents built when they were 24 we refer to as an abbreviated street name, “Mountainview;” the house we lived in in-between movings (as our old one had sold, and the new houses owners didn’t think theirs would sell so quickly and were not prepared to move), we call by my aunt & uncle’s last name (as it was her house), “Trigghouse;” or after they sold it, we called it by it’s historical significance, “Frances Hodges Burnett House;” but the house parent’s currently live in we’ve always called “The Hummingbird House” because they looked at so many different houses when they decided to move, naming them all based on something from the exterior (in this case a welcome flag), was the only way my sister and I could keep up.
-K
Our townhouse is “Little Red”. It has a red brick exterior and the front door is painted red. It’s our first home, and it means so much to us. Our sweet Cora was born at home (totally by accident!) in July and it will be so hard to leave. We’re an Army family, so moving on is inevitible.
My husband is a serial nicknamer, so I know each place will have some sort of tag!
We’ve only lived in 2 places since we got married. The first place we call “the apartment.” I’m sure when we move out of this place, we’ll call it “the house we wanted to burn down.” Just kidding.
When I was growing up, we moved a lot. We had “Piedmont street,” “Duck Pond,” “Coffee Road,” “Smokey and Tracey’s,” “Vivian’s,” “Bulwinkle,” and “John Street.” We moved a lot. I wonder if my sister is reading today…she’ll know this is me. :)
I never thought of it before but we subconsciously use the street names, “14th Street needed a lot of work and Jefferson Street was so small!” Memories.
In college, I lived with five roommates in a dorm called ‘Denmark Hall.’ I always say, ‘Remember when we lived in Denmark, such and such….” My friends always know what I mean, but everyone else thinks I am refering to the country of Denmark and gets really confused. :)
We ALWAYS call them by the house color. “You were born in the blue house”…”No, no, no, we had that in the yellow house”…everyone knows where they were…what we are talking about!
When we lived in NJ we used to live on Diane Dr. and that’s how we refer to it. I dunno what we’ll refer to the place we’re living in now when move…Hmm! Can’t wait to see that Xmas card! Have a Merry Christmas to you all =)
It’s still my first house, but when I describe it to people, it’s “the beach house” or “the foursquare”. I like Cait @ Hernando’s “housey”. Ha.
We call our house The Parsonage, since it used to be the parsonage for the church in front of our small neighborhood. And we named our new pitbull-boxer Parson. :)
This house is known as “The Domus”, short for Domus Aurea, the name of Nero’s Golden House built using public funds in downtown Rome after the great fire. Ours didn’t use public funds, nor on the ashes of a fire, but it was very gold when we bought it, harvest gold, everywhere, walls, trim, carpet. Nero was also something of a narcissist and it seemed so were the previous owners as we took down two dozen mirrors! It just seemed like a house Nero would have approved of.
The old house is often referred to as “the old house” or the “House on Lee” referencing the street.
We call our current house the Shack…because its just about the same size as one :-)
My parents always called the houses we grew up in by the streetname: Meridian, Wheatland, Meadow View, Trail Ridge.
Our conversations sound a lot like this:
“Remember Meadow View’s garden tub with the ugly gold swan faucet?”
I had that kissing Barbie! We were a military family for five years (and moved 5 times) so we refer to our previous homes by state :-)
We DEFINITELY do that. My dad and stepmom call their current house “Northside,” for the street. They rent out their old house, which is lovingly referred to as “480,” for the street number. We also have a habit of taking a picture of any “Northside Drive” street sign we see.
I had that Barbie, too! Anyway, guess we’re boring. We moved out of our first house last year and simply refer to it as our “Old House.” We expected to have some sentimental attachment to it, but we love our new home so much more. In fact, we’re in the same boat as you guys. Our home is certainly the “Barbie” to our first home’s “Skipper”!
haha can’t wait to see your card! my pets always try to steal the show my fam christmas cards ;) i love it
We just call them the town that they were in as in “the Wantagh house”, “the Copiague house” … you get the idea.
I call mine the money pit! Just kidding, I love my little pad.
For generations my family has called the house by the street name. Some with house numbers, some without. The cross streets where also often used, like 6th and Willow when we lived in Hoboken, NJ. Isn’t it funny how people do name their homes. Interesting.
We always call our house something based on one of its charactaristics. Our last house was the blue house because EVERYTHING was blue when we moved in: blue siding, blue paint, even blue counter tops!
I definitely refer to our old houses by street name and old apt’s from college by numbers.
My family must never move! My parents have had the same house my entire life. My husband and I just bought our first home in May and rented a house before then. So, I just say “when we were in the rental” and now it’s “our house.” Not too creative. But I called them by street names during our house hunt.
P.S. I hope Santa brings me that Barbie! I loved Barbies growing up. My sisters and I always looked for the Barbie-shaped boxes under the tree and went for those first!
We live in an almost century old field-stone house that we lovingly refer to as “The Rock House.” I’m not ready to leave her yet, but I can’t imagine we’ll ever call her anything different… even when we’re gone!
I love the idea of nicknaming a house!
My in-laws have a house up on a hill and a sweet dog named Amber that has been ruling the hill for 12 years now, so they recently named their house Amber Hill. They even got a cute plaque to hang by the door that says ‘Amber Hill’. Love it!
The Tiny House! My college digs in Blacksburg and truly the best house ever, chipped blue siding and all! (I loved it so much that my boyfriend made an exact replica dollhouse of it for Christmas last year…appropriately named the Teeny Tiny House).
We’ve only had 2 houses as well. We called the first one “Barnez” which is a bit of a twist on the street name, but we also affectionatly called it the “money pit”. Hence house #2. We call it by the street name so far. Our new place is also the older, bigger, more mature version of our first house. Hopefully with less costly fix ups!!!
We refer to all of our old houses by their street names with the exception of one in another town. We refer to that one by the town name.. ie: “The Temple House” :D
We moved last year after 18 years in our first home. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be. We all miss our old house terribly and even drop by occasionally to ask the current owner if she would sell it back to us (not making this up). She’s actually looking to possibly move and we’ll be the first to know. So…we call our old house “HOME.” We are SOOOO weird :)
My family has always called their old houses by the street name (bbooorrinngg). I think my fiance and I will start a new tradition by calling ours by funky characteristics. For instance, our current house was hand built in 1890 and has the most crooked walls and sloping floors I’ve ever seen. So far we call it “Our Crooked House”. People probably think it’s falling down….I think it has character!
Great idea! I love it, and I had that exact Skipper!! Love it!
I had Kissing Barbie when I was little! That’s how old I am! Skipper wasn’t even ‘born’ yet. We don’t call our house anything-I did used to refer to it as ‘the dump’ but that’s all changed now-I love it here!
My roommates and I refer to our old digs as “the shack” — because that’s sort of what it was… a one room plus a loft building literally in our landlady’s back yard. We crammed five people in and loved every second because it was walking distance to the beach. We called our other place “the gingerbread house” because of its elaborate decorative molding & dark brown paint job.
We’re street name people– as in “I miss Jamestown’s architectural details”, & “Walpole’s backyard was an effing nightmare”. ;-)
We have names for all of our previous homes too…and there have been a lot! Six in 2 1/2 years! We have…The Duplex, Mary’s Townhouse, The Palace (because it was anything BUT), Grandview House, Log Cabin, and Glendenning!