When I was very young, I shared a bedroom with each of my brothers at different times. My middle brother Matt roomed with me in College Park, Md. As soon as he was old enough to sleep in a bed, he got the top bunk. Bad idea. Even with a fairly impressive guard rail, he fell out of bed a few times. Explains a few things about him, I think. Anyway, I soon took the top bunk.

When our family moved to Salina, Kan., Matt kept to the bottom bunk, and I had the top. When our youngest brother Aaron arrived, he slept in a crib in the same room. A couple years later, after moving on to Lawrence, Kan., Matt got his own room and Aaron took his place in the bottom bunk. I can't remember why Matt got the room to himself instead of me, but my parents swear it was my choice.

The thing is, I always thought our houses were these huge things. Lots of rooms (the house in Lawrence utilized a bedroom as a playroom/sewing center), and always stairs.

Stairs are the best thing in the world for a kid. First, you really haven't crafted a kick-ass Matchbox car run unless you've run it down a staircase, hairpin turns at the landings and all. In Kansas City, Mo. (where, eventually, we all got our own rooms, though Matt and Aaron were separated by shelves and not walls, as such), I recall one such run that ran almost from the third floor to the first. Only one car could negotiate the turns and flat spaces, but I can't remember which one (of course, we named our cars and had endless races).

But I grew up in houses, places with spaces (and lots of corners in which to hide). Attics, basements, the whole midwestern rambler ideal (though I don't think any of our houses actually fit that category). I've always wanted to live in a house where I could spread out.

When my wife Barbara and I bought a house in Florida, it was a great little place with a stunning view of Tampa Bay (probably the best view on the Bay, period). But it didn't have a lot of space (and no stairs). We weren't exactly cramped, mind you, but there wasn't much room to grow. And while we don't buy lots of big things (like excess furniture, etc.), my music reviewing brings in some 50-60 CDs a month (I'm somewhere past 5,000 at this point) and we also like to buy books. Used, generally, but we've got more than a thousand of those lying around.

There is also the "kid question." Barbara's parents are going to love this. We did put the question of room for a kid into our buying equation this time out. Though, I hasten to add (bursting a bubble or two, I'm sure), that there are no grandkids on the horizon or even in the planning stages. Gotta wait a few more years.

But we did buy a house here in Durham, a 1939 "Cape Cod bungalow." It has three bedrooms and a spacious attic (complete with stairs!). A wet, unfinished basement as well, but that wasn't a huge attraction. Anyway, on Saturday night, after finally moving all of our stuff over, we settled down for a while and just sat. Well, more like collapsed. "You know," Barbara said, "we've got a good amount of space here."

Yep. Right now, we're using one bedroom as a bedroom (amazing!). One of the bedrooms is my office and the other is a being used as a TV room/music library. The living room and dining rooms are about the same size as the place we had in Florida (the kitchen is smaller), but since we can stick more stuff in the back bedrooms, every room seems larger.

It's a comfortable feeling, really. Sometime in the next year, we'll probably finish off the attic, turning it into a master bedroom or a media room/office for me. Depends how we feel. But that's in the future. Right now, we've got to unpack.

I know it's not a mansion, but this is more space than I've had since I was growing up. I know that if I went back to the houses of my early youth, particularly the ones in Maryland and Kansas, I would find them small and cramped. Actually, on a day trip to D.C. back when we lived in Pennsylvania, Barbara and I walked past that old house in College Park. It had seemed large at the time (when I was 2), and my parents insist that it was. I don't know. Looked pretty small from the outside.

So we can spread out and relax a bit. Well, as soon as we paint the outside, cut down a large, dead gum tree, redo the kitchen, finish the attic and maybe put on a deck.

Oh well. At least I've got space.

Jon Worley has moved to the other side of the tracks in Durham, N.C. Pizza Hut and Papa John's will no longer deliver to his house. Dominoes, for all the right-wing nastiness of its founder, is happy to brave the "wilds" of east Durham.