This Old House

Moving into the Dream House was certainly not the first time Molly has ever moved.  In fact, growing up Molly once moved 4 times in 5 years.  So come take a trip down memory lane with me.....

Molly was born in Williamsville, NY in this lovely house at 40 Gatewood Lane.

3 Bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and 1600 sq ft.  I will save you the time of internet stalking and let you know it's currently Zestimated at $165K. Molly lived there for 3 months in 1978.

At the age of 3 months old Molly moved to 41715 Greenwood Drive in beautiful Canton, MI.

This house was a comfortable 3 or 4 bedroom, 2.5 baths, and 1,757 sq ft.  It is currently Zestimated at $156K, which is probably not too bad for a suburb of Detroit.  Molly lived there for 5 years.

In 1983 Molly's family went back East to Marlborough, MA and moved into a house at 44 Collins Dr. There are no good pics of this house online but it was an AMAZING house. 

What you can see from this pic is that it now has a pool (definitely not there when we left in 1985) and you can see all the woods surrounding the house.  Molly's Dad and I had lots of adventures in there. The house on Collins Dr. had 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and was 2600 sq ft.  It is currently Zestimated at $424K.  That's New England for ya.

After Marlborough we took a quick jaunt over to Jersey.  Belle Mead, NJ to be exact.  The house was located at 52 Ridgeview Dr.  Belle Mead is a very rural township and it's kind of close to Princeton, NJ.  I remember we used to go into the college town to get ice cream sometimes.  There are 2 main things I remember about that house (we only lived there for 8 months); the horse farm behind it, and the drainage ditch next to it where we used to play. 

This is a pretty terrible pic but you can see the house, 2 to the left of the drainage ditch, labeled $637K.  You can also see the corner of the horse farm in the middle right.

This house on Ridgeview Dr. has basically no facts on Zillow because it was last sold shortly after we left it, in December, 1986.

After our very short stay in Jersey we went back to MA, this time in a little town called Medfield on 9 Stuart St.  Again, look at the trees... god I love that about New England.

This house has 5 pics online but 3 of them are of the outside b/c the setting is just so pretty:

So the Stuart St. house was 5 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, 3260 sq ft and is currently Zestimated at $680K. I lived there from age 8-9yrs and what I remember is that off of my parent's bedroom there was their closet and then on the other side of that was a huge playroom for me.  You could also access this playroom from a second set of stairs in the family room.  Many a game of "Barbie" was played in that playroom.

After that we went back West (are you dizzy yet?  how about bored?) and settled in Chicago for 9 years.  The suburb was the famous Naperville and our address was 1307 E. Gartner Rd.  I even remember our phone number, because in those days people had home phones and not cell phones.

Before I show you these pics I will preface that they are from Zillow and are NOT OUR FURNITURE.  That was for Molly's mom... don't want her reputation to suffer.

This house was 3584 sq feet, 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms and is currently Zestimated at $629K.  I can't even begin to list all the memories since this is where I grew up.  I lived here from age 10 til 18 when I left for college. 

I left for college in the fall of 1996, spent one more summer on Gartner Rd. after that and then in Fall of 1997 (last time this house was sold, by the way) Molly's parents went even further West, to LA.  Now I never technically lived in this house but I did have a CA driver's license with the address of 39 Clermont, Newport Coast, CA and it was technically my permanent residence so I will include it.

Here is where you are going to see a real difference from all the previous houses.  The house in Newport Coast was 2600 sq ft, 3 tiny bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms (remember, I never lived there) and is currently valued at $2,000,000.  Yes, that is 6 zeros.  Orange County is ridiculous.  For the record, Molly's parents paid no where NEAR that in 1997.

I had to post the Google StreetView because it's of the BACK of the house and it's so appropriate that there is a gardener in the pic.

From there Molly's Parents and Molly went their separate ways.  I lived in tiny apartments in Chicago and they stayed in LA for 9 years before moving to Nashville right at the same time I moved to the Old House.  Now, I have made my last move for what I hope is a looooong time into my Dream House.  And I'm also hoping that my parents have built their last house in Nashville (they built all the above houses except the California one) and they will end up close to the Dream House at some point.

Thanks for a life of adventure Molly's Mom and Dad!