From The Ground Up

With Winter showing its ugly side, it was time to start on inside projects. You might remember the basement when we bought the house in April...very creepy, and like the sign says...dangerous!
The project goals were pretty simple: repair the bottom step, paint & brighten up the basement, create bike storage and clean up the cement walls.

Bike Storage
Brighter and Cleaner Laundry Area

Repaired Stairs

Painted Stairs

Don't Fall In

Our front porch leaves something to be desired, especially from the safety perspective.

With Halloween coming, we make a quick front porch "band-aid" by adhering sheets of plywood to the landing and step. We then painted them a deep gray. We also added a new front light with a dusk-dawn timer.


In the Spring, we hope to replace the front and back porches. Check out our "House-piration" set in Flickr.

Almost gone

We are getting ready to say goodbye to the 1950's green awnings! While the green fiberglass (personalized with the initials of the previous owner), were nice...it just was not our style. Over the weekend, Amy, Dick and Nancy helped us to remove the awnings.

With brute strength, an electric drill, saws-all and pry-bars, the front two awnings finally came off.

We think it looks pretty good. Almost like a real house! : ) We have two awnings still left to be removed. These are on the second floor, and we might need to find some taller friends!

A Little Green for No Green At All

While at a friends house this weekend, we saw their neighbor doing a little bit of re-landscaping. They were so kind to allow us to have their old shrubs for FREE! We think they look pretty nice at our house!

Next summer we plan on adding a raised flower bed so the shrubs will have to be replanted then.

Quite the Summer Project

What started as a weekend long project, turned into a summer long project. We began demo on the 2nd floor bathroom over Memorial Day and just finished this past weekend. The original bathroom was quite dated and only had a tub (without the shower).

As you might imagine, the pale green plastic wall tile, leaky sink and cracked tile floor left something to be desired...so we ripped it all out!

We are very pleased with the end result!

Thank you to the many, many people who helped make it happen...Gene, Nancy, Dick, Mike, Susan, Josh, Jennifer, Matt H, Matt L, Nicolla, Lauren, Lisa, James, Tina, Jeff, Bill the Plumber, Jim the Tiler, and Chuck the Electrician.

Fire wood anyone?

One of our best decisions was to remove the 40 foot blue pine in the front yard. While the tree did offer shade to the front yard, it also made the front rooms very dark and blocked out any hope of a breeze.

Honestly, we had no idea what the house actually looked like before removing the tree. It has been such a positive change.

And the best part is that the yard smells like fresh pine!

On Our Way!

Looks like this will be our new home...We are looking to close in late March. Keep your fingers crossed. Now that we have found our new place, this blog will be used to share our adventures in renovation.

Just a little work...

Here are a couple of pictures from one of the places we visited this weekend. This would be a prime example of the caution needed when "judging a book by its cover". It is very cute with serious potential. But it would certainly be A LOT OF WORK!

The Search Begins

So we began our search for the perfect home today. You should know that we use the term "perfect" pretty loosely. Stay tuned as we continue the wild adventure that is Chicago real estate...