Did you know Google Maps has what I refer to as a historical street view? I have so much fun with it!

Google Street View launched in 2007, so you can’t see pictures older than that unfortunately. If you live on a busy street like we do, you can look back on every year they took pictures. When you’re in Street View mode in Google Maps, if a clock icon is displayed under the address at the top-left of the map, this means historical street view imagery is available. Click the arrow under the clock to expand the dates when imagery is available. You can click the different dates on the timeline to preview the images.

What I was hoping to see was someone standing outside or sitting on the porch. I didn’t get any of those things, but I can tell you what I do know from the pictures Google has of our house. There are 8 pictures total. Two of the pictures are from the same year, but I like them both for different reasons.

The image above is from July 2007. In this picture, I can see my parents car in the driveway which means they were both at home because my mom didn’t drive often at that time. They had not had the driveway refinished.

The above image was from 2007, but this was in August. Sometimes if you look at the house from a different angle, it will show you a new image. I like this image because Andrew’s car was parked out front which means he was visiting my parents. From this angle, you can see the house up the street with what looks like a turret. It was demolished years ago, along with the small white one on its left.

The image above was in March 2009. It looked cold because there were no leaves on the tree in the front yard. No one was home. The tree next door at the red brick house had been trimmed above the front window.

May 2012 (above). Google skipped a few years taking pictures – who knows why. The driveway had been refinished. My mom had died and dad was living here alone. The tree at the red brick house had been cut down.

May 2013 (above) Kevin and I bought the house from my dad. We moved in on December 5, 2012. We had the driveway expanded to fit three cars side by side if needed. We took down the small, white fence my parents had in the lower, left side of the yard. We also switched out their red barn-shaped mailbox for a plain, black mailbox. The black car was my Saturn and the white car was Kevin’s Mazda (the one he had before this one).

July 2015 (above) We had the tree removed from the front yard. We also removed the rose bushes from the lower left side of the yard. No one else would notice it, but there is no longer a chimney behind the double window on the top floor because we had it removed as well.

July 2018 (above) The car on the left was Ashley’s. I’m thinking it may have been her Mercury. Kevin’s car is the Mazda he is driving currently. We sold the previous Mazda in the photo above to Andrew. He is still driving it now. The red brick house was painted and by this time, we had neighbors for the first time since we moved in in 2012. The neighbors planted a few trees in their front yard.

June 2019 (above) This is the most recent picture of our house on Google maps. I would think they would take another picture in the new year since it has been a while. Not much changed between this one and the last except for the flowers in the stone planter with the light post at the end of our driveway. We always had ivy growing in this planter (see previous picture). Ashley decided it looked bad, so she removed the ivy and planted flowers. Also, the neighbors trees grew some.

I find it very enjoyable looking through pictures like this. There are two houses that burned down years ago on the next street over. Well, in Google Maps – they are still there! It’s really amazing to see them since new houses are there now.

Does anyone else enjoy looking at this sort of thing? I SO wish I had pictures from the 80’s!!