I think if the people let you do it, go for it. That'd be awesome. If someone came to my house I might be a little weirded out but I'd probably let it go down.

Where I used to live.

I like the idea more for the potential wierd experience of doing it than for the actual photo evidence; fun for you, weird for your kids? OMG that one time Dad made us go to that house. . . if you're cool with that, I say go for it.

Neat pic, essexjan.

Hello, why am I awake?

Oh, yeah! If it were my house I'd definitely do it - and would ask for copies of your old photos featuring the house. Of course, the dynamics are going to be different depending on whether the owner is living in the house, or if it's rented.

If you do it, please post your photos!

- or even, if that doesn't really feel comfortable, maybe you could just do a limited-time-offer post, in which we remove the photo after a day or a few hours. Or you could just forget this suggestion. :) /overenthused

3 years ago, I went back to the house where my father and uncle were raised in Lincoln, NE. Except for the paint job, it was still exactly as I remembered it as little kid, when my grandparents lived there. The neighborhood was essentially unchanged, and my dog and I walked around for several blocks, stretching our legs.

When we came back, I saw that the front door of my grandfather's old house was open, behind the screen door, and so I put the dog in my truck, and went up to the edge of the porch. A man, talking on the phone inside saw me, and after he hung up, he came to the door. I introduced myself, explained that this house was where my Dad and uncle had been raised, and asked if he minded if I took a few pictures. He couldn't have been nicer, and invited me in to look around the first floor.
≡ Click to see image ≡
The rooms were all as I remembered them, except smaller to me then, than when I was 8 or 9, and brighter, for new paint, in place of the dark old Victorian wallpaper of my memory. The drive had been partially concrete paved, but still went to the tiny, one car garage out back. And, in the back yard, where once my grandfather had grown what seemed massive amounts of corn, tomatoes, beans, and squash, there was barely room for a croquet set, in the place where the old garden had been.

But it was nice to have gone back, and my Dad's eyes shone when I showed him the old house, and told him how well it stood, in spite of small changes.

Today would've been Dad and Mom's 57th anniversary. Yesterday, it was 2 years since she died.

I like the idea. My brother did a tour of our old hood a few years back and posed in front of our house, his highschool, the restaurant where we had our birthdays and so on. Fun! He never went inside the house, he should've!

aw, paulsc, hope you and your dad are ok. those anneversaries suck. *hugs*

I say go for it.

My family and I went back to our old house, maybe fifteen years after we left, and the couple living there were really welcoming - they gave us a tour of all the changes they'd made, and we ended up leaving laden with fruit and veg from the greenhouse that I just about remember 'helping' my Dad to build when I was five.

The only slight weirdness was for me and my sister - what had once been a vast playground for hide-and-seek adventures was now a tiny wee cottage where we had to duck to get through the doors, and we had both completely misremembered the layout of the place.

jan, this house is so pretty. I love the rounded windows. What a place to relax, read a book and listen to music.

chococat, I too think it isn't weird. Sure you want to approach the residents with care, after all 5 people in there at once taking pictures is not a usual request.

When I visit places I've lived before, I always take a little time to drive around and look at the houses i occupied and other places where things happened. This gives me a sense of continuity, I was there, and then there and then of course there. I also like to visit the places where I wasn't happy equally as much. And that feels like conquering the bad times, you know, what happened here was bad, bad but see I am okay now...

A great idea.

Write up the suggestion, slip it in their mail box and let them get back to you so you could coordinate your troops.

I'm in the neighbourhood where I lived in the past a lot and everything was much larger back then. An interesting thing about memory, that it isn't made up so much of physical things but your take on it all in your mind and the circumstances surrounding it.

The pine tree we planted in front of the house used to be 10' tall. Now it's 40' tall...Two other places I've lived in have been razed, one on a major street is a large office building, another, fancy townhouses.

Hopefully they haven't renovated too much and yanked the old fireplace and replaced it with a gas one.

Two years ago, I volunteered to drive my mom and four out of five siblings to their old house in Belvidere, New Jersey. My uncle and aunts came from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The house they went to they hadn't seen in 50 years! We had a blast. The house was still standing, looking pretty much the same as when they'd last seen it (the back porch was now enclosed). A business was still next door (where their Irish Wolfhound Finn had been buried. The business at the time 50 years ago had kindly offered a plot and a backhoe thing to dig the grave for the very large dog). As they walked around the neighborhood, amazed at how many homes were there now, and telling stories about the kids they'd known, we did come across a homeowner who looked at us curiously. He loved the fact that they had returned to their old neighborhood, and he enjoyed the stories about how it had looked back when. I have a picture of them standing in front of the old place. (It was in my pre-digital days, though.) For whatever reason, they were content just to see the old house; they didn't ask to see the inside, even though someone was home at the time. They did go in their old church, though, and showed me their old school. It was a wonderful time.

Although there isn't anything special about the houses I grew up in, I'd like to see them. I'll do it if I ever have the chance.

Be prepared for the possibility of deep disappointment.

They tore down the one I grew up in. And it was a frickin' historic home for pete's sake!!!! Funny thing, it still shows up in my dreams all the time.

Metafilter's Own Jessamyn did this with her sister. They recreated several childhood photos as adults. Some funny, some touching.

This would be impossible in the house that I grew up in as the people who bought it from my folks completely changed the inside, outside and grounds in a way that doesn't match the original.