The short story "Everyday Use" takes place, crucially to the plot, in the house in which Dee and Maggie grew up—but not the first house they lived in. That first house was destroyed in a fire, which Mama remembers vividly. Dee, she says, had hated that first house.

The second house is clean and comfortable, with a well-swept yard, but it is not a house of wealth. It has a tin roof and only three rooms. Without any real windows, it is more of a shack set out in a pasture. Mama knows that Dee, who has been sent away to Augusta to go to school, will disapprove of the house, thinking that it represents a situation in which black people should no longer be forced to live or allow themselves to live.

The actual location of the house is not mentioned in the story, but we can assume that it is relatively near to Augusta, Georgia, somewhere out in the countryside.

The story takes place in a rural area of Georgia where Maggie and her mother have continued to live in their impoverished home. Dee had left home to go to college in Augusta, Georgia, with the financial help of her hard-working mother and their church. It is Dee's coming home for a visit that provides the inciting incident for the narrative. Dee's assuming a new African name and her enthusiasm for embracing her African heritage suggests the time period to be that of the late 1960s or early 1970s. The story was published in 1973.

Where does the primary action take place in "Everyday Use"?

The primary action of this story takes place at the house where Mama and Maggie live. Because Mama describes having saved up enough money many years ago to send her other daughter, Dee (now Wangero), to "Augusta to school," I assume that Mama and Maggie live in a more rural area, outside the city, in Georgia.

This is not, however, the house where Maggie and Dee spent most of their childhood because that house burned down years ago (under somewhat suspicious circumstances—it is possible that Dee actually burnt it down). This house is similar to that house, though. 

We know that the action is taking place here in part because it is Dee who comes to them. Mama describes the way Dee "lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind [her]. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included."  Although Dee hated the home she grew up in, and this house is quite similar, she is suddenly so interested in documenting it that she takes pictures of it before she even hugs her mother or sister hello.