After students graduate and move on in life, they rarely have a chance to step foot back in their former schools.
But one Cambridge area resident loved her elementary school so much she wakes up every morning in the same spot she used to take tests.
For the past 25 years, Becky Barrie has lived in the historic Dickie Settlement School after scooping it up off the market when it closed down in 1999.
"I went here as a student as did my dad and his siblings and his dad and siblings and my grandma and her siblings. It's got a lot of family connections for me here and it was a wonderful place to go to school and anybody who went here will tell you the same thing," said Barrie.
The family connection was one of the main reasons Barrie knew she needed to pick up the property which is only 4 km away from the farm she grew up on.
Nestled on the corner of Roseville Road and Dickie Settlement Road, the quaint schoolhouse that originally opened in 1912 and taught grades one through eight for nearly 100 years is now a space for family get-togethers and home-cooked meals.
When Barrie purchased the property in 1999, she enlisted the help of her family to renovate and preserve it, all of whom were made up of alumni from the school.
Preserving key elements of the school and fitting them into a livable space was integral to Barrie's vision for the new home.
"When everything was removed from the school, it was just a shell. It had chalkboards, and the stage and that was kind of it," she said.
The outside of the home also holds a special place for Barrie as her grandfather brought over spruce saplings from the family farm and planted them around the perimeter of the schoolyard. She recalls her family partaking in regular maintenance at the school like shovelling coal onto the furnace and other grounds-keeping activities.
"It was other families that helped too, it just created a sense of community that I feel isn't necessarily there today," she added.
Old playground equipment still sits in what was once the schoolyard with an old basketball net and vintage bell. At one point, Barrie had a llama and a donkey that would frequently draw in people who would pull over and ask to pet the animals.
While the outside of the home still resembles the school when it closed in 1999, the inside has been completely transformed.
Barrie is the first to say that any renovation of this scale is never truly complete.
Reflecting on her 25 years living in her former school, Barrie thought it would be a great idea to invite any former students, staff or anyone who had a connection with the school back for one night to share stories and reminisce on the good times they had.
Kate Cressman also attended grades one through eight and has strong family ties to the school. Cressman who babysat Barrie as a child has now been enlisted to help put on the event to welcome potentially hundreds of former students and family members.
"We've lived in this community all our lives and it was so much fun," said Cressman.
Cressman now 78, attended the Dickie Settlement School when it was a single classroom and was there for the addition of a second building in 1954. She remembers all of the kids in one classroom with only one teacher and the fun they would have on the playground.
Having been to Barrie's house numerous times, Cressman is still shocked every time she enters her old classroom and can picture the kids behind their desks and the writing on the blackboard.
"It's really just like going back home," she said.
The drop-in event will take place on Jan. 8, as the doors to the school are opened again from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. for anyone to come and see the old school house.
Barrie is hoping to see old faces and reconnect with former classmates. She is also hoping that someone will be able to point out a time capsule that was buried somewhere on the school grounds in 1999.
"That would be the greatest thing if anybody could ever come back and remember where that was or close to it. Because wouldn't that be super to pull up a box that's full of all kinds of memorabilia 1999," she asked.
Cressman and Barrie are excited to see the school packed with former students once again and allow them to relive some of their childhood like the two of them have for years.
"It was actually very sad to have to close it (the school), but everybody understands. I'm just glad somebody local bought it and not somebody to just tear it down or make a business out of it," Cressman said.
