What was your grandparents' home like? Did it have a certain smell or look?

When I first read this question about my grandparents' home, my thoughts immediately when to a place they lived when I was very little. I barely remember the place. For most of my memorable existence, they lived at “The Cabin” in Siren, Wisconsin, a place they'd owned as long as I can remember. But, the place they lived before moving there is what comes to my mind as their home. The Cabin was still The Cabin, even after they lived there. Weird, huh?

Anyway, the place I think of as their home: I'm pretty sure it was in Minneapolis (proper). And I seem to recall driving past some kind of plant or warehouse or something with a huge Purina logo on the wall. I think it was the upper portion of a duplex.

It did have a certain smell and look and feel. I can't describe the smell, but I bet I'd know it if I smelled it again. Our sense of smell is the most strongly connected to memory of all our senses. When they switched dish washing soap at the cafe I used to work at, on my very first sniff I was hit with a flash of my grandma. It was the same soap she'd used forever.

In my memory, my grandma was always either cooking something, or cleaning up after it. If there wasn't something on the stove, I'd smell that dish soap. It even clung to her hands for some time after she'd finished washing.

To me, the place always seemed dark. But, in a cozy, homey kind of way. Dark paneling, probably small windows, big, dark, overstuffed furniture with hand-crocheted throws on them. And, I remember it being warm inside. Probably came from being on the second floor.

There was always a dish of hard candies on the table next to the sofa. Those striped, wavy ribbon-looking candies. Never liked them, never ate them, but they were always there. (I also remember a candy dish of one kind or another when they moved to the cabin, and even when they got their place in Florida. Someone must have been eating them...I hope!)

There was a little store somewhere nearby, too, that we could walk to for ice cream. I know my sisters and I have had this conversation, and I think they remember the name and what that place was like, but I don't. I just remember being able to walk to get ice cream.

And, they had tinker toys. We didn't have tinker toys at home, and none of my close friends had them. It was something that was special about Grandma and Grandpa's.

I loved that, and hope I can recreate the special feelings, if not concrete memories, when my own grandchildren come along.