Porch Profile: The Women of 112 Chambers

From left, juniors Carolyn Timmons, Allie McKenna, Mary Faye Cicero, Kaitlin Regan and Kristin Stroble. Vincent Huang/Staff Photographer

By: Moira Bonadonna – Staff Writer

FN: How did you guys meet?
All: Freshman year in Marycrest.

FN: What are some house traditions?
Kristin Stroble: The tree needs to be decorated.
Kaitlin Regan: We decorate our Christmas tree for every holiday.
Mary Faye Cicero: We already did it for Valentine’s Day.
KR: We have a wall of shame upstairs.
Allie McKenna: It’s just very embarrassing pictures.
Carolyn Timmons: If you’ve ever hit a low point, it’s going to be documented on the wall.
KR: It’s really funny, though, and it’s with all of our friends, not just us.
CT: No one’s safe.
KR: No, it’s appropriate. I spilled my salad everywhere one time all over my laptop. That’s up there.

FN: Are there any house rules?
KR: We’re pretty much free spirits.
AM: We don’t have a lot of rules.
KR: Yeah, we get along very well.
MC: Well, Kristin yells at us about the dishwasher.
KS: Yeah, well you guys are bad at that.
CT: Oh, recycling. We actually do have that rule. I will dig through the trash, and then hunt you down.
MC: Pop tabs. We save pop tabs.

FN: What kinds of things do you do on your porch?
MC: We decorated it for Christmas. That was fun.
AM: One time, when it was nice out, we moved our living room furniture out there.
KR: We did homework out there, we listened to music. We played music out this front window.
CT: Our neighbors are awesome.
AM: And they have a baby pool, so we like to sit in the baby pool.
CT: We painted porch sheets. It said “The 112 Chamber of babes.”
AM: We crossed out “secrets” and wrote “babes.”

FN: What is your favorite place in the house?
CT: I’d say the kitchen.
KS: I’d say the cubby hole. We call our room the cubby hole.
MC: The kitchen’s probably the center of all social gathering.
CT: Well, there’s food in the kitchen, so we like that place better than here [the living room].
KR: We hang out here when it’s just us five. When we have friends over sometimes we sit on the kitchen floor in a circle.
MC: We only did that once.

FN: What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened to you at this house?
KS: The mouse. Theodore, we named him. Teddy for short.
AM: He was scurrying across all of our food on our pantry shelves when I came down once. I screamed, and then ran upstairs.
KS: Maintenance put out traps for us, and then came back and disposed of it.
AM: Yeah, the mouse was pretty freaky.

FN: What is the most dangerous thing about five best friends living together?
KR: Productivity is at a zero.
AM: If you want to get stuff done, you have to lock yourself in your room or go to the library. And only two people go to the library.
CT: Eating well. That doesn’t happen.
KR: Well, we generally eat pretty healthy. You just cannot cut out the chocolate, cookies or muffins.
CT: The brownies. Those are problematic.
KR: Potato chips.
MC: Yeah, someone’ll make a baked good and it’s over.

FN: What does a typical weekend night look like here?
AM: A hot mess.
MC: It’s also like the central gathering place. All of our friends just kind of flock here.
KS: Our doors are open when we’re here, and our friends just walk in.
CT: We’ve been really lucky. We have a great layout, so we always have people here.
MC: Beyoncé’s playing in background.
CT: Yeah, we’ve got speakers in the kitchen, speakers in here [the living room].
KR: What else do we play? We have such a mix.
KS: One Direction.
CT: “Middle school grind” is our playlist.

FN: Who is the house comedian?
AM: Kaitlin.
KR: We’re all pretty funny.
MC: We bounce off of each other.
CT: Sarcasm is our language.
AM: And the sass.

FN: What’s your favorite food to eat together?
KS: Chocolate.
KR: That’s a lie. Chips and humus. Chips and salsa.
CT: Chips and cheese, light on the cheese.
AM: Basically anything involving chips.
MC: Enchiladas.
KR: Our family dinner is enchiladas, like, every time.
KS: Oooooh, we love BDubs.
CT: We hoard the ranch and the sauce bottles.
CT: Yes, we run BDubs out of our kitchen.
KR: Kristen’s addicted.

FN: Describe your house in one word.
KR: Vibrant.
MC: Yeah, I was thinking “lively.”
KS: Definitely “lively.”
MC: Laid back.
KR: Wait, I need to Wikipedia this…Oh, for sure. It’s “lively.”

FN: What’s your favorite part about living here?
CT: We have a quote wall.
AM: It goes up the steps.
CT: It’s anything from like, sarcasm to quotes.
KR: It’s very positive.
AM: We’re around all of our friends.
CT: We got really lucky.
AM: We had surprise renovations this summer, and coming back to it was like the best thing ever.
MC: And we’re kind of out of the way, so we don’t have any randos. Mainly everyone who comes, we know.
AM: It’s relatively quiet for the most part. In the ghetto, if you lived on Lowes, or something, and you’re trying to sleep that can be an issue, but here it’s not.
CT: I love our house.

FN: Any last words?
KS: We’re awesome.
KR: We are very modest.
MC: We just got really lucky.
KR: We’re grateful.
AM: It’s kind of ironic, because before we really knew each other, freshman year on St. Paddy’s Day, Kaitlin, Kristin, and Carolyn proposed to me and Faye to live together senior year.
CT: We got down on one knee in the middle of Lowes.
KR: And I kissed their hands.
MC: They saw us across a sea of green.
MC: It’s hard to say how much fun and awesome this place is.