I was over at my best friend's house all the time as a kid. The number one cool thing she had was a number of video game systems! I was enthralled, and later inspired to secretly buy a Super Nintendo that I only took out and played when I was home alone.
Her dad did carpentry and landscaping work, and I was absolutely in love with their koi pond and this little ornamental tree that grew in twists and loops and knots (we called it a weirdwood tree, but I don't know what it really was).
Also, her mom gave me candy. It was a win-win situation for me. :)

Oh my children's friends must be in awe...We have a vintage Buck Roger pinball in the downstairs room. It is temporary storage for a friend, but gets played often. I never thought how odd it must seem for visiting little ones. Funny.
-Jeanne
www.domesticspace.com

For me, there was one summer where I thought the homes with an NES had "made it." A quarter century later, I'd rather hang out with the folks that still have an Atari 2600 in their home.

Electronic (yet pre-digital) gadgets. I grew up in GE town, and some of our wealthier neighbors had houses with fairly elaborate light control systems -- e.g. they could switch off all the lights from the master bedroom, etc. And some folk had their houses "wired for sound -- stereo, of course". This was the sixties, mind you, when everything modern was welcomed -- but most of our houses were still pretty low-tech.

I had a friend whose parents had those completely upholstered dining room chairs. I was absolutely fascinated with the idea that they had put skirts on their chairs.

When my kids were very little we had two adjacent apartments in NYC, with just a rough hole between them (no door, no frame). All their friends were impressed.

On the other hand, my son always preferred to go to the apartment of friends of his, not because it was bigger and nicer (which it was), but because the babysitter allowed them to take all the cushions off the couches and jump on them.

I grew up in New Orleans but lived just outside town. All my friends houses were 100's of years old and had cool histories and old bricks and wood and that old antique smell. So mostly the smell. Smelled old in a good way. Also, tight steep stairs. Like, it was a struggle to climb them!

Ooo, saloon doors. Nice!!

My aunt had a little 'reading nook' built into the wall of their big old farmhouse. You had to climb up into it with a stepstool... it had a bed of fur, some soft blankets, a lamp on the wall, and a little curtain to close it up. It was SO cozy, so wonderful, so inviting.

Our neighbours had those long colourful plastic strips hanging over one of their doorways. It was to keep the flies out but I felt it was wonderfully adventurous.

On trips to Holland to visit relatives, I was always impressed by a) pull-cords to flush the toilet! b) duvet covers, no top bed sheet! and c) light switches which were actually flat, modern buttons to push, not switches to flip.

We had a zipline and some very scary big swings in our yard which the other kids always found exciting.

hidden rooms. and tree houses. Those two still take the cake for me.

Not sure this counts as "in the home," but I was always super jealous of kids who had a treehouse (or variation thereof). Pools were also impressive.

I had a friend who had a built-in blender motor and food processing motor in his countertop.

Stairs! I was convinced that 2-story houses were reserved for the rich and famous. I am unduly proud to have stairs in my house as an adult.

This friend also had a "stereo chair" that looked like an egg with a seat and internal speakers. We would sit in it and listen to albums all day.

I grew up in a butter, traditional home. My godmother had a penthouse in Dallas, and it was all white. White carpet, white upholstered furniture, and glass tables. I don't think I ever recovered from the first time I opened that door, and saw a world I had never seen before.
Ironically, when she died, she had a butter, traditional house, just as boring as my Mother's had been.

A friend of mine had a laundry chute growing up, I was amazed and always volunteered to throw laundry down it.

Houses with two sets of stairs. E.g. one staircase going up from the front hall area, and another staircase from the back of the house, usually the kitchen. I guess those are called "maid's stairs"? Anyway, I thought those were really neat.

We had a family friend who had a chair lift on her stairs. I remember riding it up and down the stairs probably the entire time of our visits. She was probably glad to see of go home!

Central air conditioning. WOW, if you had AC in my neighborhood, you were the richest person on the block. Only one family on our street had it.

I love the unpretentiousness of the photo. It looks like happy people live there. I always wanted a lawn so I could get a slip 'n' slide. I grew up in Queens, NY so lawns were few and far between. It was one of the reasons I wanted to move to New Jersey, now I can't wait to get out. I've still never owned a slip 'n' slide, but I will one day.

My best friend in elementary school lived in a big old Victorian house. They had TWO staircases -- the main, open, sweeping formal staircase, and what would have been the servants' staircase hidden behind doors at the top and bottom. The house was completely divided in half by huge fancy wood double doors -- separate servants' quarters and the homeowners' space. It was an amazing house, we had so much fun in that place!

Another friend's parents were both doctors, and so they had two phone lines so they could always be reached when they were on call, even if one of their three girls was on the phone. They also had a heated pool, and a hot tub, and a second kitchen in the basement..... Colour teen-aged me impressed!

Another friend's place had a cool pantry closet that is almost indescribable. It had a 3'x3'square door partway up the wall, and inside was a normal-looking shelf. But that shelf swung in on hinges to reveal a 5'x5' space with more shelves lining the walls... except the back wall, which had another little door that opened into the staircase to the basement. We would hide out in that strange closet for hours! Their basement was weird, too.... creepy and unfinished, with troughs lining the walls for water drainage.

My aunt and uncle had a staircase with white painted risers and dark wood treads. So fancy! I used to imagine that I was walking on a giant piano.

Family friends had back to back closets in a couple of bedrooms with a little door in between. It was the best hide and seek spot. You could just sneak away.

The unfinished attic above my best friend's garage. We used to hang out there for hours.

Hammocks. Canopy beds. Perfume bottle collections. Taxidermy. Brass faucets. Trees for climbing. Cool stone patios to lie on in the summer heat. Wall mounted telephones.

Oooohhh... I have a list:
- the secret room in my aunt's place - it was storage under the eves with a door wallpapered with no handle (magnetic?) so you had to know that it was there. great reading nook.
- the padded room my cousin had for a bed (maybe 5x5?) - served us as trampoline, sound studio and reading nook
- the elevator my friend's parents had in their mansion
- the huge curved stairs they had to the second floor - like what you see in the movies, when the heroine parades down in her floor length gown - of course, we just slid down those awesome banisters - and yes, marble floors in the foyer
- the barn another friend had, with a swing from the rafters which we used to swing from the straw bales to the haybale. we also built forts with the straw bales.
- the pig-sty same friend in which we rode the pigs (shhhh... don't tell)
- the tractor my friend was driving all over the farm (at age 10) - super super cool
- the swimming pool in the woods, that another friend had
- my aunt's garden: stone fountain, berries, flowers and fruit trees, canoe dock on the lake and the screened gazebo. <sigh>
- my aunt's hidden spiral staircase to the second floor with broom sticks for banisters
- my parents' double attic (never seen one since)
- my uncle's garden full of nooks for different purposes: the strawberry nook, the raspberry side yard, the patio under the oak tree, the swingset behind the oak tree, the kitchen garden
- my other aunt's grand piano living room - it was a small living room, no room for anything else except for a chair and her husband's trombone. It also had big sliding glass doors to the patio.
- aunt #3's roof top terrace overlooking the lake. her superstrong gutters - we would climb out the roof window and walk along the gutter to the back of the house where the jump from the gutter to the hill was only 3 feet.
- my cousin's swing suspended from the balcony, swinging over the paved patio - my sister suffered a concussion falling off the swing... that was the end of the swing :-(
- and i loved my various friends' and cousins' slanted wall (attic) bedrooms.
- another aunt had a supersteep staircase to the top floor (probably not compliant with today's zoning). we would take an old serving tray, sit on it and slide down. you picked up a heck of a lot of speed.

hmm... i had a fun childhood... reading over all this, i'm surprised we all survived our childhoods with only one concussion that I know of.

I was impressed by open staircases with railings. We lived in a bungalow where the second floor was an after thought. Just a door and stairs off the kitchen.

What a lovely post and comments. So many great memories here.

I also loved houses with multiple staircases. My great aunt and uncle's house was the first one where I saw it (and I pretty much love their entire house). Also, just big, old houses in general. Also, because our house only had a cellar, I thought finished basements were really cool.

When I was a little older, I had a friend whose backyard was a Japanese garden, with koi ponds. I thought it was so cool that they had fish in their yard, but was completely unimpressed with the backyard of a friend across the street, whose house was right on the Mississippi river--go figure!

Now we live in a big old house. It only has one staircase, but there are two fish ponds in the backyard. Funny how things happen.

Dart boards, pool tables, a swimming pool were always a win for me. A friend's house also had a downstairs bar across from the pool which housed all their liquor. Of course, I was 8 but I still understood the cool factor of it.

Basements that were finished were always cool. I loved pantries and still wish to have one! I loved the libraries I have seen. I also loved the one dream window seat where I would imagine myself a cat and curl up in the sunny spot.

Also papasan chairs were very impressive to me and now I have my own! Of course "own" is subjective as I'm constantly fighting two dogs for my own chair.

I too was blown away by fridges that could give you ice and water, RIGHT FROM THE DOOR! I also was easily wowed by TVs that didn't need, like, a coat hanger, and also by anyone who had cable at all.

Something that significantly UN-impressed me was my first boyfriend's all-white, sterile home with white leather sofas and even white cats. That was repulsive rather than impressive in my book.

A set of round playing cards.

@ vamey I'm completely with you on the laundry chute!

Oh, this is a fun post!

I always loved all of the outbuildings on my grandparents' farm - the little pump house in the garden that used to be cold storage before they had a fridge, the duck house (grandpa preferred duck eggs to chicken eggs), the HUGE barn and tractor shed, and especially the little canning room off the woodshed with shelves lined with blue Ball jars full of preserves. What I wouldn't give for that space now!

I also really loved the tiny bathroom at my other grandma's house, which was just a toilet closet under the stairs. It had a normal door into the kitchen and a secret door with a green glass knob that you could use to get out to the hallway. She was Finnish, so they also had a sauna built into their garage!

I had a friend that had a Dutch door from the kitchen to the backyard and I thought that was just about the neatest thing ever.

Also, completely foreign to me, the mother had a small cupboard in the kitchen with her "treats" that was off limits to the rest of the family. She had a bit of a Jr. Mints addiction and kept her stash in there. What was so foreign to me is that it was actually respected. At our house those Jr. Mints would have been gone as soon as she turned her back.

Where do I start?
Old timey newspaper wallpaper (oft adjacent to aforementioned saloon doors)
Bunk beds...preferably several to a large room necessary for families with many children
Rumpus rooms where parents feared to tred
Fireman's pole from top story to first story (okay, this was actually in a Sunset decorating book my parents had, I never really went to a house with one but I wanted one nonetheless)
Window seats of every ilk
I don't have any of these things in my grown up house but they all still seem cool (except the wallpaper, I've aparently outgrown the wallpaper).

Thanks for the great topic; it really got me skipping down memory lane :)

Great post! My aunt's adorable little bungalow always fascinated me as a child. I loved the dining room with its floor to ceiling bookshelves, filled with interesting books and nick-knacks, the cozy little living room with a fireplace and soft textiles, the pink 30's-ish bathroom that always reminded me of something out the movie 'Annie', the open shelf in the bedroom that allowed you to peek through to the kitchen, and the kitchen itself, with it's carpet (weird, but I loved it), hanging plants, and interesting ceramic dishes. My aunt traveled a lot in her youth, so she had little treasures from all over and her home always seemed so magical!

My grandparents had a house that was build in the 1890s (I discovered this by crawling under the front porch and finding a cornerstone). I thought their house was like a gigantic maze. It was actually rather small, but the rooms were all connected by narrow hallways and doorways. My favorite part was the basement - a musty, disgusting cellar, really - where there was a room with a sloping floor that had been used to keep firewood. I thought it was the best hideout ever! I always came back out of the basement covered in dust and dirt.

My grandfather still lives there. Next time I'm in town, I'll have to re-visit the basement.

Love this topic, it's like a trip down memory lane. My best friend's family had the standard wood paneled basement wtih a wet bar and a pool table. My family's basement was unfinished so this seemed like such a luxury. I loved that place, used to make her pretend we had our own restaurant. My grandparents had not only a full vegetable garden and several fruit trees, but also a koi pond. They lived across the country, so my getting to see all that was always a treat.
My family had a laundry chute, which impressed my friends, but my favorite aspect of my house was that behind the closet in my room was the entrance to the attic. If you moved the clothes aside there was a door, and it was a great spot for hide and seek.

Color TV.

Oh, and! My friends who lived on farms. They had tons of animals, and one girl even had a hayloft with rope swing. We spent hours and hours playing in there.

:)

Oh, I forgot about my friend who had a player piano. It was the old kind, you had to put in the scrolls and pump the pedals for it to play. We were obsessed with that thing, much to the chagrin of her and her parents. Everytime she had a sleepover it got played for hours.

My best friend had a library. Her's and her sister's desks were in a tiny room that had shelves and shelves of their books. My family couldn't afford to buy books (although I was a weekly visitor to the public library), so I thought it was amazing to have row after row of your own books. I believe this led to my own book buying compulsion as an adult, until I finally circled back to the public library.

Wall-to-wall carpet in the ........ wait for it............ kitchen! Oh, I was so impressed. How luxurious, I thought. But I was just a kid, and it was the 1970s (which explains A LOT). Now I can hardly bring myself to eat in a carpeted restaurant. It grosses me out.

I grew up downtown, in a huge city, on the 19th floor, so my Aunt's house in the country was a wonder, it had:
-a screened in back porch filled with stuff and nonsense
-an outhouse
-chickens!
-a trap door in the floor of the kitchen that lead down to a dirt root cellar
-a woodstove
-the bestest second bedroom/guest room ever; it was only big enough for a single bed tucked under the eaves, a double dresser with a mirror and a chair.

When I was very young my family would vacation every summer in a house that had a beaded room divider. I loved it! It is one of the few things I remember about our summers there.

I took care of an 86 year old artist that lived in a rowhome in Bolton Hill / Baltimore City. She had a gorgeous upright piano, that even with Alzheimer's she still knew how to play. :)

She had painted a mural of a street scene in her kitchen. It took up the whole one wall at the kitchen table. A horizontal mirror directly across from the mural over her kitchen sink. She had also painted the little alley way between her rowhouse and the one next door. The house had the tightest winding staircase. Being from the boring burbs it was the coolest place! A little wonderland in the city.

three words: Star Wars bedroom.

One friend had a toilet paper holder that was scented inside. I thought that was the coolest thing, so cool, that I dreamt about it that night and peed the bed!!

Another friend had a water bed in the middle of her yard. She said it was for when she set up her tent...we just jumped on it.

Closets were also big for me. I never had one in my room till I was a teenager and we moved into this house that had a huge closet and then a door that opened into another one tucked under the eaves. I practically lived in there, drawing and daydreaming...

I liked any hidden spaces or finished attics. I was convinced that the house I grew up in was part of the Underground Railroad because it had an access panel to the shower (I thought it was a secret door) and that my mom's roll-top desk had a secret compartment that housed a letter from George Washington. Really our house was built in the 1970s and the desk was from Sears Outlet.

My mom was a realtor and let me come with her to show houses a lot. I liked brand new houses and plush carpet. We went into a model home once and my sister slid down the laundry chute and got stuck. However, I LOVED old houses because of the aforementioned secret spaces and attics. The house I own now was built in 1880.

Fun post!

Hot tubs, and also refrigerators with ice dispensers.

Also, since I lived in a 1950's ranch house that was only 1 story, any friends' 2 story houses seemed exotic to me. Just the idea of stairs... especially curved staircases. I loved having to go up and down stairs to get to their rooms!

Oh! And another one:

A friend of mine's mother used to keep a large basket in the bathroom filled with soaps (both liquid and bar soap) from all of their travels, from various hotels. I loved looking at all of the beautifully wrapped soaps in different shapes, and always wanted to steal one.

I actually grew up homeless. So anytime I was visiting a friend or relative I would revel in their abode. I truly loved everything! I didnt have a real home till I moved away on my own at the age of 15. One would never know, especially now since I am a part time designer. I think not having a home made me want to make every home beautiful and cherish the one I have.

But..my favorite room as a child was the butlers pantry and an elevator

I always wanted to paint my room as a kid, but my parents never let me, so when I went over to a friends house and her room was painted all in black and white, I was super impressed. Her dad was also a carpenter, so her room managed to have a built in bunk-bed with her closet underneath, and a loft area as well. AND she lived in the city, while I was stuck in the suburbs, which also just made me think she had it made.

I also had a friend who's parents' ridiculous golf-course mansion had, straight up, a "secret" room behind a bookcase off of their also-cool home office. The room was a full bar, with a pool table, player piano, and big screen TV, though it also had tons of windows and french doors out onto the patio (hence it being a "secret"). They NEVER used it, and as a kid I absolutely could not wrap my mind around the idea that you could have such a ridiculously cool room that you never used.

Similarly, I also found homes that DIDN'T have those rooms you don't use (formal dining room, the formal living room in addition to the family room, etc.) really cool. It is kind of a silly rich-white-kid thing, but I thought it was awesome when people's homes were filled with rooms that were all ACTUALLY USED, thinking "how great is this ?? I can actually hang out in EVERY ROOM." It suits me well, now, since I could never really afford to have unused rooms an still think they're totally ridiculous.

Oh, definitely waterbeds, too. Even at the time I thought they were sort of absurd, but SO FUN.

Robert Indiana Editions 1-9......my brother was friends with a kid from the Abrams publishing family and they had all of the Indiana numbers hanging over their kitchen cabinets.....I know they had lots of other insane art...but for some reason the Indiana's were always my favorite.

My best friend's house seemed like another world to me, for lots of great reasons, but three of my favorites were: they had pocket doors, which I would slide open and closed as much as I could; they had two Christmas trees every year, one regular and one "theme" that would vary each year; and cats.

I can still remember the home from my friend in middle school, it was a ranch style with a massive living room that was sunk in and lots of windows to the porch and pool. I thought it was the coolest house. Still do.

Having grown up in a cookie-cutter 1960s ranch house, I was quite jealous of
the "secret passages" (crawl spaces, attics, walk-in closets, etc) that my
friends in old homes had. One of them had an underground tunnel that ran
the length of the yard from the basement to the garage.
Another had beautiful tudor-syle diamond-pane leaded windows.

Always the huge basement playroom. Always. Nobody cared about the mess; you could draw on the walls. It was a total dream for heavy rain or snow days.

My best friend as a kid lived in an incredible house, she had a laundry chute down to the basement (I never seen one before or since), her yard was so vast that they had a pool, rhubarb garden, blueberry/strawberry patch ( in their own cages to protect from birds, perfect for hide and go sneak games), what seemed like acres of wildflowers and all this led to woods where a small pond existed. We would be the first kids in the neighborhood to skate every winter since it was the first thing to freeze. (we'd also get to watch the tadpoles frozen under the surface)

My Aunt lives in the first house my Grandparents bought and raised their family in. It was great nooks, when i was a kid I loved going into the basement because my Uncle had a pool table and a really old radio that was just as tall as me. I remember pressing those buttons (which I'm pretty sure was bakelite) and turning the knobs. What is it about buttons that fascinate children? They also had great crab apple trees that were perfect to climb on.

My friend had a PONG video game that we played for hours.

The coolest thing about my best friend's house, aside from it being two-story(!), was their massive collection of VHS movies. This was 1983 when not everyone even had VCRs. They had two and they had all their movies either in a book or on index cards. It was so cool!

I lived in a tiny studio apartment with my family as a kid. So a house with a room for each kid was pretty amazing to me. A two story house was the other thing that impressed me as well as a house or apartment complex with a pool.

my list is long:
I grew up in a five story brownstone in Boston, so when I went to friends houses where everything was on the same floor I was ecstatic .....
The hidden rooms in between the wall of the house at my friend's house (her father was a hippie architect)
Same architect built bunk beds out of old doors, they were staggered up the wall and could be folded up into the wall when not in use. He also made their family couch out of huge cardboard rolls that were cut in half and folded out and upholstered with huge comfortable pillows.
Roof Decks....great for throwing things to the street below while still being unseen.
Sometimes it was just the smells, my best friend's father was Indian and was a great cook.
And finally I had one friend whose father kind of lost his mind and he tore the entire inside out of their home (also a huge old brownstone) and then only added flooring where he felt is was needed but the house was mostly exposed beams, so most of the kids slept in hammocks suspended over bare beams. We would lie in the hammocks and listen to old radio shows.... indescribable..

When I was 5, my best friend from kindergarten had a HUGE blue tiled bathtup that you had 3 steps to get down into. You would just stand in it until the water filled up, and there were 3 knobs, one for cold, one for hot, and one for extra hot (that's what 5 year old her to me, haha). Then my best friend in 1st grade had a water bed! COOL when you're like, 7. Another friend had abalone shells (her dad used to dive in Baja a lot, this was before abalone shells were sold for $10 a pop) bordering the entire front of their house.

As I got older, I spent a lot of time at my cousins after my mom started working. I only liked their back yard since they never mowed and it was easy to play pretend back there. Tall, green grass was a must. But I was afraid of their kitchen, it was so dirty I made myself sick thinking of eating off the dishes, and the bathroom because the toilet was always growing something. Yeah they were kind of dirty.

My friend had a pink bathroom, and they used Dial soap. Looking back, I know that bathroom was very basic, but the smell of it and the total pinkness- pink toilet, sinks, and tub, pink mosaic tile seemed so luxurious to me. I'm sure my thrifty mother had us using leftover motel soap, or some bargain brand that didn't smell of much at all.

Well, my friend N. growing up had her OWN telephone in her room AND a canopy bed. Her family also had goldtone silverware and one of those ceilings with gold flecks in it, which -- blush -- I envied at the time.

My grandmother and grandfather has a wonderful, large backyard with a faux Japanese theme which included an outdoor brick oven and a tiny built-in greenhouse/shed plus they had rows and rows of canned goods in the garage right next to the tiny attic where my grandmother kept all her old petticoats and costume jewelry that all of us played with. If my parents couldn't find me when it was time to go, they'd just look there.

My friend J. in high school's dad was building a plane in their garage (he kept saying he'd have to rent out a larger space once it was time to put on the wings), so that was pretty fascinating!

Most of my friends had more money than my family did, but I was the object of envy occasionally because we had a playhouse in the back yard that my dad (a professional carpenter) had built, which had a tiny porch, dutch door, tiny windows, even built-in cupboards inside, and a cool ladder around the back that led up to the flat deck on top. Which often doubled for, of course, a castle, a pirate ship, the Emerald City, etc.

We also had an archery target, so I guess my friends envied that.

My aunt and uncle had a McMansion (compared to my own small 1860s home). I once counted that they had 12 sinks and thought that was the epitome of luxury.

Oh and I forgot: my aunt and uncle (my aunt T. still lives there) found a SECRET room in their San Francisco Victorian behind a secret door (with a trick latch concealed in a bookcase!). The room was a total secret, was not on the blueprints or in the real estate records anywhere.

In the room they found evening dresses and tuxedoes from the late 19th Century, a spirit cabinet, a crystal ball, tarot cards, and various other seance paraphenalia!

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

My grandparent's house in Huntsville, AL was built into a hillside and had three levels with stairs. I'm from Florida, the land of ranch houses and I didn't know anybody who lived in a house with stairs. We could even have slinky races!

A neighbor's house had a trampoline which was the coolest thing ever. I still want one.

My Oma had huge deep marble window sills filled with plants, and a 24" deep tub. Two friends had under-the-eaves bedrooms and I was totally envious. But my fave was the family that had a spiral staircase, a mod fireplace in the middle of the room and Le Corbusier chairs, they were so exotic!

I once was invited for a play date to a home that had an antique merry-go-round horse in the front window--I was fixated on that until I was taken to the back yard. The back yard was made up of a series of stepped gardens, separated by tall boxwood hedges with doorways between each. We had such a good time playing hide-and-seek at that house, and, though I'm sure we were there at least two hours, it seemed like my mother returned to pick us up about five minutes after we were dropped off.

A sectional sofa with compartments for TV Guides and the Bugles we put on the tips of our fingers while watching DuckTales.

Also, I thought that anyone who had a garage door opener was probably pretty rich.

Best thread EVER!

My friend's treehouse. I always wanted one as a kid. His family lived on a giant acre estate that backed onto a river and we used to catch crayfish in it all the time.

And any backyard. I lived in condos for more than half my life and I am beyond making up for it now.

Like many have posted here, I loved old houses with secret nooks & crannies as well as those second staircases that led to the kitchen. A good friend had a very old basement with stone walls and a dirt floor (with a secret-looking alcove in one corner), and we were convinced that his house must have been connected to the underground railroad. (Of course, now that's the kind of basement I have in my house, and I find it less than charming!)

I also thought it was so amazing that one friend was allowed to sleep in her sleeping bag on her bed instead of sheets and a cover. And also bed tents! This was the 80s, and I remember them being all the rage--those of my friends who had one were awesome, and sadly I never did.

Oh, and like many have said, if you had an in-ground pool, you MUST have been rich!

A friend of a friend had a bedroom that had its own bathroom - but the bathroom was actually divided into two closet-sized rooms on either side of the entry door. One was for the sink and toilet, and the other was a shower (the entire space was the shower.) It struck me as really cool, but I'm guessing getting out of the shower actually made a mess if you weren't super careful.

I was also mightily impressed by my one friend who had air conditioning.

@Leapkate that is so cool!! I used to knock on the walls and floors of my house as a kid hoping to find a secret room. I would go into the closets and push on the walls to see if there was a magical hidden door anywhere!

I grew up in the late fifties/early sixties in "tiny boxes" suburbia--all the houses on our block were exactly alike but one neighbor had added on a glassed in family room which I thought was just amazing (this was way before family rooms were common) and one neighbor had built a little playhouse for his daughter in their backyard that I absolutely loved to play in.

Oh, yes, I forgot to add: pantries stocked with accessible junk food, like chips, cookies, sugary granola bars, and marshmallow fluff (for fluffanutter sandwiches, of course!). We only had basic, mostly healthy foods, so I was always in awe of being able to go over to a friend's and just help myself to foods that were completely taboo in my house. Especially when you didn't even have to ask a grownup and could just eat up in your friend's room or in front of the TV! Total luxury!

I was obsessed with my friend's spiral staircase. I still have a fondness for this aesthetic because of how much I loved it as a kid.

In retrospect, the rest of their house was quite unfortunate. No natural light (no light at all, really), black wrought iron and red shag carpet. Everywhere.

Also: Friends' theater rooms.

As a kid who shared a bed with her sister until 3rd grade and then slept on the floor until 5th, anyone with a same-gendered sibling and yet had their own bedroom was wealthy to me.

I was always envious of my friend growing up whose mother worked and got home to an empty house every day--total privacy, getting to watch whatever you wanted on TV? Heaven. My friend thought my house was great because I had a bunch of brothers and sisters and a dog.

I always loved the laundry chutes that friends with larger houses had. I had a ranch house, and envied my friends who had multiple-level homes. In my young mind, staircases represented wealth.

-a secret space that connected two rooms on the top floor
-two finished rooms above the garage, that they never used and I always tried to make it into a club house for kids
-matching plastic dinner set for each kid
-snoopy snow cone maker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My grandmother's apartment in NYC. I loved the elevator in her building - so mysterious when the double doors closed and the floor numbers could be seen through the little portholes in the doors as we went up and down.

Then going into her apartment, a little foyer with a console table and a big mirror over it. Off to the left, my uncle's room with a bed and a wardrobe and piles of Newsweek magazines. On the right, the living room, small and cozy and comfortable. There was a wall of windows, a high couch or daybed which was always covered with a thin blanket or bedspread, an old time radio and my favorite, an electric organ with lots of keys and buttons to play with. There was also a wall of built-in bookshelves filled with books and knick knacks and an easy chair.

The kitchen was tiny, just enough space to cook and I remember there was a dumbwaiter in the kitchen that intrigued me. Eating had to be done in the living room or in the equally tiny dining room in the back of the apartment. There was a freezer in this room too.

Finally, my grandmother's bedroom. A big room, huge compared to the other rooms in the apartment. In it she had a dresser with a large mirror, a wardrobe with Russian icons on top, two big windows and a queen size bed between them and a headboard with books and tarot cards and other interesting treasures stored on the shelves.

So many things that people mentioned were what I thought was cool, too! Stairs and the accompanying basements and attics (I grew up in a slab home with neither), that old-timey newspaper wallpaper that someone else mentioned, garbage disposals, and these weird step on pails in the ground that I think were for milk delivery.

My great aunt had an antique music box, in her basement, the stand-alone cabinet kind that pre-dated phonographs. It had these huge metal disks with holes in them. You put the disk on to rotate, and wound it up with the big side crank, and then it plinked the holes and played beautiful waltzes. My sister and I would play it for hours on end, and I was heartbroken when she moved into assisted living and I was no longer able to visit the music box. I'm guessing her daughter has it now, but we don't socialize much with those cousins so I haven't asked. Music boxes are terribly rare and expensive, of course, but if I own one someday, I can die happy.

The porch of our semi-detached house was tiny and uncomfortable, so I always envied those with wrap-around porches (bonus envy if there was a porch swing).

My mom was pretty no-frills in the beauty products department, so I adored my great-aunt's ornate seated vanity, which was crammed with jewelry, powder puffs, those perfume bottles with the squeezy things on the side and all manner of other decadent beauty items.

Lastly, I lusted over window seats. When I was about 10, my parents very nearly bought a house that had one in the smaller bedroom on the second floor. When they backed out of the deal, I cried. Even as an adult (with a kid of my own), I still would love to have a window seat for reading and daydreaming.

I went to visit my grandparents who lived in an apt building and my brother and I thought the elevator was cool and we spent a lot of time riding it up and down.

My friend, Matt, had a laundry chute in his house. We lived in a town where a majority of the homes were single-floor ranch homes. It seemed incredible to me at the time.

I had a friend who was the daughter of the embassadors of sweden and boy was I in love with their basement which was a full sized basketball court complete with sauna and elevator, now that was fancy to me.

My little friend had one of those black cat wall clocks, where the eyes went back and forth, as did the tail.tick tock tick tock..mesmerizing...and 'junk food'..and EGG cups!! Very 50's...as it was the fifties..; ) AND of course my grandparent's triple decker with the stairs leading to the roof and clothesline!

Best thread ever!

This is my favorite thread.

In the early 1970s I had a friend who lived with her artist parents in a big loft in Soho (NYC). Instead of bedrooms, she and her brother had tents. They looked like circus tents and were made of cloth suspended from the ceiling by wires.

My best friend's father built a stage at the end of her bedroom, complete with a curtain, wings, etc. We used to write plays and put them on with our brothers.

My Aunt's canning closet-tucked under the basement stairs with a pull string light and the golden colors of the canned Ball jars. I still tell her that were there a natural disaster, her canning closet would be where I'd seek shelter.
A friend whose family had a bright and sunny room upstairs designated just for playing pingpong. The only big item in that room was the pingpong table.
High school friends who lived in Arts/Crafts style homes. One home had blue wallpaper with a bird background and a sleeping porch. Another had beautiful oak built in glass door cabinets and a huge claw foot dining table in the dining room.
My childhood homes were all built post 1960.

This post is awesome! I was also envious of the refrigerators with the ice / water dispenser. And, those touch lamps where you just touch the side and they turn on and off. Hi-tech for 1983!

A house where the basement lights turned on as soon as you stepped onto the stairs...and various other sensors that controlled things. And then I went to the homes of some rich kids from my private high school, who had long lighted driveways, their own lake/pond, 5-car garages...I didn't even know those kinds of houses existed in my hometown.

My aunt had her own big-windowed apartment, all to herself, FULL of houseplants, with a pair of high-climbing cats and an entire wall of books. I suppose I was always a nerdy little grown up, but that's what I wanted for myself. And I have it now. :)

My grandparents had a big black gramaphone that we had to wind up -- and tons of records. And a workshop in the basement. There were always things to take apart and make new things -- old strollers and bikes for wheels, scrap lumber, and jelly jars full of nuts and bolts. My siblings and I would spend hours building go-karts and rafts.

I was always impressed with swimming pools and one friend had a zip line going thru there backyard! That was pretty cool!

My best friend in early grade school (our mothers had met in the hospital when we were born) lived in the chicken coup (four stories, brick, with lots of built in stuff that ended up being used as the platforms for seating spaces, etc.) of an estate house from the 1910s. They had made this into a family home in the early 1960s and so it was both packed with history and with MCM elements. Her father was an industrial designer (they had one of the earliest microwaves in their kitchen) and her mom was an artist, and the house and their lives seemed so sophisticated to me. I still feel privileged to have spent so much time there as a young person.

A couple of my friends had amazing climbing trees.

One had a path of stepping stones that went all the way along the side of the house, we had lots of fun hopping from one to another, they also had a giant trampoline which was amazing. Also, their house was haunted.

Another friend had a pool table and this giant black leather sectional where all the pieces came apart. She also had a huge pool and an extremely high end play structure with slides and swings.

One of my best friends had a bird feeder which I always loved, lol. Someone else had chickens in their yard!

Someone had an exterior curved wall of glass brick. Amazing. She also had the coolest room I ever saw, it had two closets AND a dressing room. And her dad made her built in bookcases and a window seat. AND she had an NES. And her parents had a balcony. Best house ever.

I never realized how much impressed me about my friends' homes!

My childhood friend had a sunken bathtub. It was flush with the floor. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was always wishing to be invited to bathe there, but I never was : (

Oh my gosh, for me it was the end-all,-be-all to have an intercom system in your house... or to live in a gated community -also to have a vacuum that connected to the wall!

oh, and how could I forget Smith's house? He was an only child whose whole house was white, and in their living room they had a basketball court... oh, and they also had books and booooks of naked people. (his dad was a photographer)

Fun! My grandparents had a sprawling 1950s ranch with a lot of plush touches. One thing that I obsessed over was the swank 'dressing area' between the master bedroom and bath. In this room there was a big built-in vanity...essentially a mirrored nook with a mirrored dressing table set into it...so the reflections were infinite...and all of her fancy bottles of perfume were so sparkly...I sat there for hours imagining. There was a cedar closet for coats and suits...and open shelves with built-in hat/wig stands. My grandfather had one of those fuzzy red/black automatic shoe buffer things...which I thought was the single greatest piece of technology in the world. Kinda still do...

When I was a kid I loved going to my grandparents house, they had a fun home that was filled with all kinds of tchotchkes from their travels. I would marvel at all their collections. I still have the porcelain cat from Japan that my grandmother gave me back in the early 70s. Today, their home would be considered an ebayer's dream. The only bad thing about their home was the fact that all the furniture was covered in plastic and you had to walk on the plastic carpet runners. Another thing that impressed me as a kid was anyone who had a pool...not the little kiddie pools but either a large above ground or in ground pool. I could literally spend all day in a pool.

I once stayed with a friend's aunt and they had a sunken bathtub in a wall-to-wall carpeted bathroom. It felt so luxurious!
I was also a little bit in awe of a couple of friends whose parents had a pool table in their basement and in a separate ground floor room respectively. I don't remember any of these people playing pool, just that they had this gigantic piece of furniture with pool cues, etc. in racks.

I grew up in France a 19th century house that was really cool, I even had my own working fireplace in my bedroom that my Mom let me have fires in. And my own 1/2 bathroom in a closet! The house was totally run down and my Mom was renovating one room at a time when she could. So we had a totally 19th century living room with parquet, marble fireplaces, crown moldings, weird wiring, etc. and an 1980s red and white kitchen that looked like it was out of a commercial for frozen food. We found some schrapnel left from WWII in the backyard once, and as the house had been requisitioned by the Gestapo during the war, every single door had an unbelievable number of locks, deadbolts, etc., ranging from 3 to 5. Even the closets the toilets were in had at least 2 locks.

My uncle lived in the country in a 15th century house with 1 meter-thick solid granite walls and an immense fireplace that took an entire wall, in which we once roasted a whole mutton. His house was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a counterfeiter who was executed in the 16th century, but we never saw it. We never found the buried treasure that was supposed to be somewhere on his property.

As an adult, the coolest thing I remember is moving to a California Bungalow in Los Angeles that had wonderful build-ins everywhere, including a secretary desk whose pull-out board had a build-in orange bakelite pencil sharpener! Unfortunately the owners had it sold and demolished a few years back and I'm afraid the coolest pencil sharpener in the world was trashed. Sniff, sniff.

As the oldest of seven, I was always in awe of my friends who had their own bedroom. Swimming pools were a biggie for me and still are!

When I was a kid I loved the novelty of visiting friend's houses, and I thought just about everything was cool! But the things that stand out in my memory are: an intercom system, a hanging chair, and a cousin who had a basement (I was born and raised in Florida where no one has basements). Great thread!

We visited my grandmother's farm in the country once a year. Her house was large, had sloping ceilings on the second floor, plaster walls, lots of rooms and enclosed porches, potbellied stoves, and cubbies with doors built into the walls in odd places that had surprises in them like my mother's and aunt's old toys. I discovered cool old books on my uncle's bookshelves while staying in his room: Peter Pan, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and the Bobsey Twins stand out in my memory. That bedroom overlooked a large garden with flowers and vegetables and raspberry bushes where we picked ripe raspberries in summer. My grandmother also grew lots of geraniums in the sunny windows. Growing up in a 70's modern home built by my father, which was nice but had no mystery to it, I loved my grandmother's house. Over my entire life, variations of my grandmother's house have appeared in my dreams. It was torn down when I was about 14, so it is preserved as my childhood memory. It became some sort of archetype for me. My husband and I finally bought our first house, and it was built about the same time as hers. I actually fell in love with another house that looked even more like my grandmother's, but my husband nixed that because he thought it needed too much work. It was painful to let it go.

I had a friend in high school who had an actual wood swing suspended with ropes from her bedroom ceiling. This seemed so whimsical and fun to me.

Haha The first thing that came to mind was a friend who had a *bread drawer* in the kitchen. I was ashamed we didn't have a bread drawer at our house. So silly.

@jber I grew up in florida and we had a basement, during one of the hurricanes we quickly understood why no one else did! It was a really fun indoor pool for a few days though, can't complain.

One friend had a second-story loft in her bedroom. You had to climb a ship's ladder to get to it. It had lots of pillows and magazines stacked in it, and we'd sit there eating canned frosting and reading Seventeen all afternoon (which was also cool because my mom was 'healthy' and wouldn't let me have such sugary nonsense).
My aunt had a plain-jane window seat that I thought was the most magical thing I'd ever seen.
Another friend, who lived way out in the country, had a tiny shed that she had converted into a playhouse. She tacked up old bedsheets for wallpaper, and hung pressed flowers and antique tea cups all over the place. We would walk down the road to the old metal dump and scavenge for 'cool' pieces of junk to add to the 'house'.
The one thing I've always longed for even as an adult is a reading nook. I've always been so jealous of people who have converted attics and little alcoves where they can curl away and hide with a good book and cup of whatever.
Such a great post!

We had neighbors whose kitchen had an eating place that was a booth. I had only seen that before in restaurants and I thought it was very glamorous. I still like booths. They instill intimacy in the dining experience.

A dedicated playroom. My best friend's family had two boys and two girls in a 4-bedroom house. I thought it was super-cool that they had a boys' bedroom, a girls' bedroom and the third room (not counting the master) was used as a playroom. It had bunkbeds, a record player and a TV, and was used for sleepovers. This same family also had a sliding shower door -- WOW -- and the parents were Italian and served exotic food like grilled cheese featuring Mozzarella instead of Velveeta.

A little less impressive but still a wonder to me as a child was another friend's house where we were not allowed to walk in the living room because we would disturb the vacuum tracks in the rug. That made my own neatnik mom seem so much less kooky!

Hardwood floors... giant trampoline... swimming pool... dedicated guest room? Actually, the ice dispenser is a good one, too....

When I was young, my grandparents lived in La Jolla (San Diego) in a late 1960s modern that they designed and built (literally built) themselves. They sold it when I was 7, but I have many memories of their old house. It had a center atrium where they grew plants, a front living room with diagonal wood paneling on the walls, an open concept kitchen, a large deck on the front of the house that had a view of the bay, and the whole back of the house was done in louvered glass doors and windows. I also my grandmother used a back bedroom to paint in, and there was another room we weren't allowed in, that's where my grandpa had all his electronics... he was working on computers well before they were the norm. Also, in my grandma's bedroom, she had an Atari. Very cool house. My mom said the home they had in Pacific Beach where she grew up was also very modern, built in the early 1950s, the entire exterior was natural wood siding. I've only seen the outside of that one, but it really is a great example of mid-century architecture. To think, they designed and built the houses themselves! My grandparents are now 87 and 92 and still completely independent and living in a condo on a golf course. They still have a gorgeous Danish modern dining set.

Great topic!
Intercoms & ice dispensers impressed me. I was in awe (and a little scared) of the thing called a garbage disposal.
My uncle lived in a house with about five bathrooms.. jacuzzi tubs.. three living rooms. It was the coolest house ever. I re-visited that house recently, and it is hideously 80's and ridiculous. ;)
Probably the coolest thing of all to me, was older teenager's bedrooms.
Older teenagers just had such intriguing decorating - like stepping into another so-cool world. So much to look at.

When I was a kid I'm just wishing to had a play ground or small play room inside our house so that I can still play during winter.

My father's parents built the house they lived in. Like, made the bricks and everything. It was built into a hill, with grass on half of the roof. My cousins and I would run up the side of the house/hill and roll down.
What a great post!

Also knew a family with a pin ball machine in the basement, but we only visited them a couple times. Any early '60s home (real or magazine) with built in or push button anything. Any really nice finished basement. One family in the neighborhood always had a convertible. My best friend's grandma passed away & they inherited her '60s round tube color TV. Interesting topic & yeah, kids DO notice (and envy) 'other people's' stuff.

The coolest thing I remember was that my friends' houses where clean and orderly. My parents were wild hippies, and housekeeping was not my parent's forte. Way cooler than any gadget could ever be. Though I do remember being impressed by seeing the existence of guest rooms, or houses that had booth style kitchen seating.

I was completely impressed with my grandparent's house! It was a "basement" built into the side of a hill for a REALLY long time. Their furniture was always more comfortable, they always had tons of "old" ladies over for ceramic classes that would dote all over me, pinch my cheeks and tell me that they had known me since I was a tiny baby and they couldn't believe how big I had gotten, ALL THE CERAMICS, the massive amounts of books...especially the Audubon's Bird Book! My grandfather's chair that was off limits, the woods, the chicken coup, the massively huge yard, the glass carafe coffee maker that my grandmother would put on the stove every morning, her "dippy" eggs that of course came from her chickens. And then we would go to "camp" which was a log cabin only 10miles away where you would have to pass over "the narrows" that was a tiny strip of land just wide enough for one car that had steep sides leading into the water on both sides. The river we would swim in and get our hair washed in right in the front yard of camp. Camp itself was so cool because it had an outhouse and a HUGE stone fireplace outside that we would roast marshmallows and hot dogs at. The huge table rock that we would jump off of into the water. Going to my Great Aunt's house right up the road from camp and playing on the spiral staircase. To this day I still would rather swim in a lake or river than a pool, I still want a spiral staircase in my house, still love getting fresh eggs from the chickens and hope that one day I can have my own chickens, I want to steal the glass carafe from my grandma's house even though you can't find the stems that like to break anymore :(, the stone outdoor fireplace will be put in at our new house this summer, and I am LOVING the fact that our new house has a full basement!!! This was by far the BEST post EVER! Thanks for sharing and allowing us to all share our wonderful memories too!!

Basement rec rooms with dark wood panelling, beer can collections behind the bar (usually decorated year-round with strings of Christmas lights), lava lamps and Pink Floyd on the turntable. Aw, yeah.

What most impressed me about other people's homes when I was a kid: pianos, stairs, skylights (in the bathroom!). Black and white checkerboard floor tile. One neighbor had a trampoline, swimming pool, pool table, grand piano, AND standalone ice machine--which was mind-boggling. I loved it whenever they let me come over. Kids who had their own telephone - the Swatch one that was clear and you could see all the inside pieces of it.

And add my voice to the chorus saying, "Great post."

I was impressed by friends who had their very own private bathroom attached to their room! Talk about luxury. I got my own with the most beautiful floral wallpaper when I was in the seventh grade and thought I was really a princess. I'm also impressed by anyone with a pool, especially when it is lit up at night...

I had a friend when I was 6 or 7 that lived across the street from me in a row house in Philadelphia that was converted into 2 apartments. She lived with her mother who was always at work. I went inside once and there was almost no furniture. The living room had a rocking chair, tray table with radio and that's it; no TV! The mother's bedroom had suitcases with their clothes-that's it. The girl's bedroom has a twin mattress on the floor, an old beat up dresser that was probably left by the previous tenant, and 2 cardboard boxes with toys. The kitchen had no refridge. When I got older I realized that they had probably left an abusive situation with whatever their car could carry. Susan got hit by a car later that summer and then they moved away.

My next door neighbor had a secret passage way. It had a normal sized door at one end and you would walk down a long hallway, around a corner, and then come out at a half sized door in the laundry room. It was finished and they used it as a closet/ storm shelter. What made it so cool was that it covered about half the house.

My neighbor's mom would buy Kraft macaroni and cheese. My mom would only by generic.

I adore AT and even more so after the enthusiastic response to this post and the has-to-go outpouring to the partner-watches-porn post. Go AT gang!

The idea that you could fill your home with 'fun' things YOU liked - not just the practical items that a home must have, bed, sofa, chairs table etc. I learned this from my mother's cousin whose home I visited often as a child. Her home was filled with items from her travels and clever things. She also had: a beaded curtain the separated her kitchen from dining room, a salt water aquarium, really cool furniture (what I now know is Danish Modern) waterbed and a pool. Yes ABBA played on the homes built in speakers.

What a great post. I've loved reading these comments.

My list:
My grandma's house had a back staircase that was never used. It led all the way from the back door to the attic, a wonderful dusty space with lots of old books and trunks with clothes in them. Hidden staircases are the best.

A girl I knew had her own bedroom, professionally decorated and with a window seat. Her bathroom had swan wallpaper, which I loved. I've added 3 window seats in my own house because I loved it so, but my opinion of swan wallpaper has changed.

My best friend was an only child (I'm one of 5) and they had a cleaning lady 3 times a week. Her house was always clean and tidy. I loved it.

Another friend had a father who was a psychologist specializing in sex. We spent a lot of time looking at his books (when her parents weren't home) in a wonderful, quiet, book-lined study with amazing filtered light. I learned a lot from the books, but what I really vividly remember is the study, which is pretty much still my ideal.

I remember my parents taking us to a party at their friends house and the house had a basement and attic and stairs! I loved the basement because all the kids hung out there away from prying parents' eyes. It was dark and cool and a little scary and we had the best game of hide and seek ever! I was so glad my brother found me.

My neighbors growing up had a waterbed - we'd go visit their kids and slosh around on it.

At 27 I'm still impressed by people that have central air - living in New England it's still not as ubiquitous as it is other places, and most of the people whose homes I visit do not in fact have it. My parents are by no means poor but still choose to use two air conditioning units to keep their house livable in the summer.

a tree house.. which is incredibly rare in Indonesian homes. i gazed in awe at my friend's tree house when i visited.

Grew up in Cincinnati and had friends who lived in seriously big, old houses. Some had dumbwaiters near the kitchen. And others had buzzers in the bedrooms to ring for the servants. (Long gone by the time we were around!) My bedroom, which was on the second floor, had the laundry chute that went down to the basement. It also meant that you never needed a hamper in your bedroom for dirty clothes! Also, the houses built in the 20s and 30s had those telephone nooks built into a wall in the hallway. So cool!

A fenced-in backyard and a sink sprayer (is that what those things are called??)!

Oh, and I've always wanted a window seat!!

There were a couple of homes that I admired as a kid. Two in particular stand out in my mind:

My great-aunt's home had built in bureaus, cabinets, and bookcases under the eaves. I thought having a bureau built right into the wall was the most clever thing ever!

A friend of mine in grade school had a closet renovated to hold a twin mattress and be a "sleeping nook" of sorts. They hung up these awesome curtains to make it even cozier. We played in it like it was a cave, castle, or clubhouse, whatever the moment demanded.

My grandparents' house always fascinated me when growing up and my parents now live there and I still love it! It is a remodeled old farmhouse so it has great sloping walls in the upstairs and some funky closets that made great play areas. I also really love the library and niches designed for some special statuary.
Some friends of my parents lived in a house that had a mother-in-law suite, which I thought was the coolest thing ever! I don't think they even used it but I was enamored.
One of my best friends had one of those bunk beds that has a larger mattress on the bottom than the top and I was pretty jealous of that (but not the fact that she had to share a room with her brother).

I love this post! My best friend in elementary school had seriously THE coolest house. They had a computer (in 1985! With Oregon Trail!), a swing in the living room (!), a horse, and a playroom filled with toys that used to be her mothers -- old board games, dolls, etc -- with a cutout in the closet floor that her father had put in for an underground play area. Ugh, that place was so amazing. Her father was from Spain and her mother was from Canada -- maybe that's why there was a place like that in Oklahoma? ;)

I grew up in a suburb of Baltimore City where everyone I knew lived in row homes. What always impressed me were the homes that always seemed to have something cooking on the stove. I was a foodie even then! Other than that, I remember going into a couple of homes that had fireplaces and always wanted a home with one. I'm now 48 and still waiting ...

Oh, so many things. In addition to the ice/water dispenser and the saloon doors, which I also thought were cool that were in friends (and family's) houses and not in mine.

Atari.

The upright pianos that both my grandparents and godparents had.

I once visited a girl who had a trampoline in her backyard. I remember absolutely nothing about her house. Now I realize that I could have broken my neck on that thing, but boy, did I have fun.

My high school had window seats. I loved claiming them and sitting there imagining that I had one in my room.

Our babysitter growing up had her husband build her a laundry chute - smartest idea ever if your w/d is in the basement. He built their son a treehouse (wanted it), a tire swing (wanted it), and an igloo in their front yard! Yes! One snowy winter, he built a perfect igloo that you could actually get inside. I'm still in awe.

Now I wish I could just find the cute little penguin my grandmother put baking soda in to keep the refrigerator fresh.

**and didn't exist in mine.

Love this thread! My best friends parents house had a laundry chute and a secret passageway leading from my friends walk in closet to her parents walk in closet, so mysterious!!

My mom's style was very Jacqueline Kennedy, so as a child I was impressed with the "hippie" style of a friend's parents--a curtain of strung beads that separated the kitchen and living room, lots of macrame plant holders with leggy plants. Also, the entire inside of a small closet, including the inside of the door, covered in yellow smiley-face wallpaper.

Stairs of any kind, until we moved into a two story house.
The ice dispenser on the fridge of course, and the cool plastic carpet covering that you could slide across in socks.
My grandmother had a laundry chute which was just the most amazing thing to me and my little sisters, we sent a lot of non fabric stuff through there!
My best friend's parents designed their own home and they had skylights in all the bedrooms and the bathroom, which seemed so sophisticated.
And both of my aunts had in ground pools with little covered patios nearby, which for some reason I attributed to them both living in Connecticut.
The first indoor spiral staircase was in a frenemy's mcmansion and I felt a little justified in my discomfort with her; I found it charming and yet pretentious.
Oh and wooden swing sets! My best friend got the first one on the block (actually his dad made it with railroad ties since he worked for the RR) and he was the most popular kid in the neighborhood for a while!

For me it will always be the tree growing in the middle of my grandparent's house in Mexico. The place had like 20 foot ceilings with lots of windows, and a tree right smack dab in the middle.

Laundry chutes! Also, sliding glass patio doors. Our house didn't have them and I thought they were awesome.

One set of neighbors had a room where the walls were tiled with weird acoustic panels so that the dad could listen to classical LPs. Another set of neighbors had a barber chair from the 1920s and a Murphy bed in the basement.

formal dining rooms, pocket doors, cable television, washer and dryer, bedroom furniture sets, ruffled bedding, dollhouses, attic playrooms, basement playrooms, vcr's, computers, and i once went to a classmates and was impressed by the kitchen. the linoleum was white with sage accent and the counter stools were also sage. they were all redheads. that struck me as quite something.

I spent every other summer in Rochester, NY with family. I was amazed by their basement full of food. I now assume it is for the zombie apocalypse or something, but back then - it was an endless supply of salty Campbell's soup, ice cream, pop, chips, everything. And tons of old toys that were forever being stored for a yard sale and a POOL TABLE. They had the Ewok treehouse down there!

I always loved apartment buildings or townhouses.

My Nonna in Rochester, NY lived in an apartment building. She had a shared courtyard with picnic tables we could sit at. I loved spending the night with her. When my family stayed the night, my parents and brother slept in her guest bedroom (what a luxury to have just a bedroom for people to spend the night in), and I got to sleep in the little twin next to her double bed in her bedroom. I also thought her galley kitchen was amazing - everything within reach for her 4'11" frame. The small apartment would smell amazing because of her cooking everything fatty and Italian. I am still in love with that apartment, and can't shake the desire to live in one even though I have lived in apartments since moving out of my family house and KNOW what a pain it can be. It was my Nonna's perfect place.

My best friend lived in the married-student housing at the Christian College nearby, and they had four girls in one room. Two bunk beds and each had their own trunk for their stuff. I thought it was the coolest even though the ages ranged from third to ninth grade.

A kitchen panty. We didn't have one when I was growing up, and we don't have one now! I still covet the pantry.

My Uncle C, an engineer and bachelor well into his 40s, always bought little puzzle games and pranks out of magazines and would leave them around when we came to visit. He had two (2!) pinball machines in his garage and would leave a can of dimes so we could play as much as we wanted. There was also a murphy bed that my sister and I slept/fought on. And he had a waterbed in his master bedroom that we usually would fall asleep on watching movies while the grown-ups stayed up at night (our house had none of these awesome things, and no TVs in the bedrooms).

My grandparents had 2 great homes: one was a farm in south Texas, where the grandkids had full run of the place and could play outside and eat the grapes/figs/berries off the vine/tree/bush all day. The second was a ranch home in east Texas on about 2 acres with a huge back lot with about 100 pine trees. Grandpa set up a 100 yard zip-line for us. I also remember my grandmother having a walk-in closet where she kept all the play-things for the grandkids. She would basically go to garage sales and stuff and buy whatever she thought we'd like for $5 or less. So every time we went to visit, it would be an adventure to see the new swag, and comforting to play with all our old favorites. The grandkids (about 8 of us?) also got to "camp out" in their old 1970s RV at night. Mostly I think this was due to lack of bedspace in the house, but we thought it was awesome to be staying in our own space.

The best memory/envy from a friend's home would either be my friend Kristin's basement, which her mom decorated totally kitsch-1950s retro with a minifridge of sodas we could help ourselves to, OR our neighborhood in Kansas that had multiple, interconnected ponds and paddleboats that residents could take out. My sister and our friends and I would paddle around those dang lakes for hours and hours and hours every summer.

My grandma's house had saloon doors into the kitchen, a mail slot directly through the front wall into the closet, a laundry chute, a trash compactor, a pool, and an attic bedroom with red shag carpeting and cowhide bedcovers (why yes, my dad and uncle did get to decorate by themselves in high school). I thought all of this was amazing.

In friends' houses, I was pretty impressed by video games, intercom systems, waterbeds, walk-out basements, trampolines, yards with trees, jack-and-jill bedrooms, and kitchen cabinets always stocked with junk food.

- central vac
- jack and jill bathroom
- intercom

Laundry chute! It was the coolest thing. We would take turns throwing toys and notes down to each other in the basement.

Ufff ... lots of things:
- a small tree on a terrace,
- an entryway connected to kitchen connected to living room connected to entryway (lots of running going on :)
- intercom,
- pot pouri in the bathroom,
- TV in parents' bedroom,
- sliding glass dors to the balcony

I wasn't all that young but all my ooohhh fantasies were always in the kitchen. My best friends parent's kitchen had a ceramic top cook stove, a huge, by todays standards, loud microwave and the ice maker water dispenser. Heaven!

I always wanted a treehouse/secret hideaway so I built one in my living room for my kids :) I remember the laundry chute and thinking that was awfully cool, but I lived in a ranch and now I live in a bungalow, so I still wish I had steps ! I remember wanting a trundle bed so I could have sleepovers like my best friend and in high school a girl I was friends with had a bar with neon lights, pinballs and a giant projection screen , with a pool table and foosball in an adjacent room. the bar was full of soda and juice, but it was still way awesome!

my best friend had a canopy bed. i was soooooooooooooo jealous. then many years later the nintendo got big. she got one. so did my other gf. i was sooooooooooo jealous. they are still my best friends. now i have my own wii and i barely touch it and my 4 yr old has to beg me to play it. but you can bet your ass that if i had the original old nintendo game system i'd be playing super mario all the time.

ALL.
THE.
FRIGGIN.
TIME.

The scented toilet paper holder story is hilarious. So many of mine have been triggered by others' comments. This is such a great thread.

We knew one family that had all of the following:
- bunk beds
- water beds
- laundry chute, for sure
- pinball machine
- in-ground pool
- oh my gosh, the old timey newspaper wallpaper! yes!
- an air hockey table
- an electric organ - the kind that would make various percussive rhythms, samba beats and what have you
- cable TV
- PONG
- snowmobiles!
- sugar cereals
- laminated place mats with activities, maps, etc.
- five kids all close in age, plus a constant parade of foster kids, so anyone and everyone was welcome, all the time, and there was always someone to play with
- when we all went up to their lakehouse every summer, all the boys would sleep in an actual moving truck

Visiting my grandparents was always a treat. They had
- a wet bar and the most amazing collection of swizzle sticks from all over the world; I'd play with them for hours
- sink sprayer, totally
- a separate bathtub and shower, which I thought was so cool, plus fully carpeted bathrooms
- his and hers walk-in closets
- an intercom system (connected to a radio and record player) throughout the house.
- that red and black electric shoe buffer thing!
- flocked wallpaper in the dining room.
- a rotary telephone where the ear and mouthpieces were separate
- my grandmother had a deep sewing basket full of smaller baskets with myriad buttons, pincushions, etc., and my grandfather (who owned a hardware store) had a FULLY stocked workbench with every kind of tool, saw, nail, screw, scrap wood...and a vise. I don't remember anyone telling us we couldn't use anything, either.
- My grandmother hated to cook, so sometimes when we stayed with them summer dinners would be nothing but watermelon. Or sweet corn. Or ice cream!

Nthing the window seat. I remember my brother and I accompanied my parents
when we were shopping for a home and went to a ton of open houses. Late in one day I realized I had lost my beloved baby doll. After some phoning around the baby doll was discovered in the hidden compartment beneath a window seat where I had spent the entire visit to one home.

Once, I went to play at a friend's house and her mom was doing the laundry and asked which one of us wanted to clean out the lint filter. I had never been offered this opportunity at home and didn't understand the appeal. But my friend stepped forward and showed me how to peel off the big wad of lint from the basket and I was hooked. I've loved that part of doing laundry ever since.

Sunken living/family rooms, woodsy backyards, painted portraits of children, walls of art hung all the way to the ceiling (some it framed art created by my friends), fireplaces in bedrooms, living "common" areas on the top floor with bedrooms on the bottom floor (stairs up a hill to the front door), large glass exterior walls. But MY family had the clawfoot tub! :D

No question about what impressed me. Their indoor bathrooms, hot water whenever needed and a bed for each person in the house.

Loving this post!

Our family friends had a secret door in their kitchen (!) that looked just like the pantry next to it, but you opened it to reveal a spiral staircase that lead down to a whole hidden apartment! Amazing and so magical as a kid.

Other favourites are sunken lounge with shagpile carpet (and this was the 80s) leading off to a dark den with full size billiard table, which we'd play underneath.

We just put a pinball machine in our inner city apartment, fun.

Spiral staircases, booth-style seating in the kitchen, sunken bathtubs, feather beds, pianos (especially baby grand or bigger-- who had the floor space for that??), and for some reason, dog doors!

My best friends parents had a water bed and a hot tub. They also had an amazing stereo with all the latest albums. It was coolest place ever!

the house up the street had a shiny black lacquer piano, an NES, a recessed area in front of the fireplace with pillows, a bed built into a wall with a low rounded ceiling, and...an electric water pik system for cleaning teeth. oh me oh my. i begged to take care of their cat when they went on trips. when they didn't ask me to take care of their cat i broke into the house and was caught by a neighbor.

My aunt had a toaster with no slots in the top. You would insert the bread into a slot on the end, it would toast as a little conveyor belt carried it past the heating element, and then it would fall out of a slot on the other end (onto your plate!). I've never seen another one like it.

The neighbors' dining room had a buzzer under the dining room rug so that the hostess could summon the help from the kitchen with a tap of her foot. Other neighbors had old-style switchplates with two buttons instead of a lever (a glamour that I got to enjoy when I bought a 100-year-old house). These same neighbors' swingset had a sliding board just like ours -- but THEIRS was better because at the top of the slide, where you might rest for a second before sliding down, there was a little plastic canopy! (And in a harlequin pattern, as I recall -- probably the genesis of why I can't get enough diamond shapes to this day.)

Growing up, I had a neighbor who had a sunken living room area. We thought that was super cool. I remember discussing with other kids how cool it would be to fill the sunken living room with balls and use it as a ball pit.

Any hidden/concealed rooms or doors, like in my grandparents' houses. They weren't really intentionally hidden per se, but we would never notice that there was a handle on the wall, until a relative went to get something from a storage closet and it seemed to appear out of nowhere!

Laundry chutes, finished basements, matching towels, and hidden rooms.

@SUSANJANEJUNG, you can usually find a NES or SNES at flea markets or ebay/craigslist. My college boyfriend bought one for me at a flea market 6 years ago (still works) and it came with like 20 games. It was so awesome! We keep it in the guest room and when we have multiple overnight guests, there is usually a paper-rocks-scissors tournament for who gets to sleep in that room.

A friend had a dollhouse replica of her house scaled down and decorated exactly like the real thing (loved this in grades 1-3) and both houses were beautiful for the early 1980's.