This closet is known as the "service side closet" because it is located on the street side of the house, known as the "service side." The closet is located directly across from the front door, which led me to believe that coats would be placed in the closet. However, the closet stored tools that were used on the service side. Additionally, children played in the closet to get away from the rest of the family or to play with imaginary friends. After opening the closet door, I realized the closet was located underneath the stairs, so there were no shelves. The closet has an approximate volume of 84 cubic feet. The following items were found in the closet:

McGarry's House

The front door closet is located directly across from the front door and is mostly used for hanging coats. The coats are hung on a rod and there are two shelves at the top of the closet. It is hard to classify the items in this closet because they are so different. I can even remember when I was young this closet was a great hiding place when we used to play hide-and-go-seek. The closet has a volume of approximately 158 cubic feet. The following items are found in the closet.

Remembering back to the early years, when five children and three adults roamed the house, there were many coats in the closet: normally two or three per child. Three were my grandmother's, about four were my mother's and two were my father's. Additionally, gloves, scarves, and hats to match the many coats were stored in this closet. Bingo, Yatzee, and puzzles were brought out often in the evenings and the catalogs were used at Christmas time to write letters to Santa. Mom took care of the holiday decorations and we kids were never allowed to touch the "good" silverware. Honestly, I do not even think I have ever used it. The films are pictures of my mother in her early years and the early years of my parents' marriage. This shows me that family is very important to my mother. I guess my front door closet, full of coats, was the reason I expected to see coats in the front door closet in Greenbelt.

Murdock's House

The front door closet in the Murdocks' home is actually located downstairs because when you walk in the house you must walk upstairs or downstairs. The closet consists of one shelf at the top and a rod to hold coats. The closet has a volume of approximately 90 cubic feet. The following items are found in the closet:

The first thing I noticed in this closet was three vacuum cleaners. Therefore, I concluded that this house must always be kept clean, especially after I found the carpet protector. The coats were very cramped in the small closet and many of them were in plastic bags, leading me to believe that these coats are probably not used very often. On the top shelf, all the photo items were placed in bags and boxes along with a box of holiday decorations. The photos portrayed family and friends of the past and present, again showing the importance of family.

College Park House

There is no front door closet in my home. This is very unfortunate for my roommates and I because we have to keep our coats in our bedroom closets and this takes up a considerable amount of room.

Comparison

All three closets contained items that were important to the families. I chose to look at all three closets because of the wide variety of items found within the closets. There were some similarities between the McGarrys' and Murdocks' closets, but for the most part each family utilized the front door closets for different storage purposes. The Greenbelt family stored tools, the McGarry family stored coats and many important family items, and the Murdock family stored coats and vacuums. Surprising to me, the Greenbelt townhouse closet contained tools rather than coats. However, in the Greenbelt community, the service side was not normally seen as the "nice" side of the house, so coats would not be hung in this closet. Coats were hung in the back door closet.

Back to Main Page

Back Door Closets