Category: Travel

The Crazy House

Our moving timeline just got condensed. I figured we’d take a few weeks to stage our home and paint a couple of rooms to prepare for it for sale. We would have time to get everything ready without making ourselves too crazy, and without losing much sleep. Then we fell in love with a house. I’m not going to share it here yet, because we can’t make a serious offer on it until our house has been listed. Meanwhile, I’m nervous that we’re going to lose it!

Our listing agent is familiar with our house from the blog (isn’t that a funny thing?), and she has given us some advice for selling the place. She’ll be coming out assess it in person this week, and then we’ll try to get it on the market as soon as possible.

Here’s one house that we looked at, and have passed on. It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with 2500 sq. ft. in the Ridgeland Historic District. (It’s adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright district, but we’d be happy with either area.) We’ve been referring to it affectionately as “the crazy house.”

If you live in town, you’ve probably spotted it. It’s a large Victorian — rambling, and distinctive. You might wonder, with a house that looks like that on the outside, if the inside matches. Oh, it surpasses the exterior. The people who lived here obviously loved their home very much. They just had a unique design aesthetic.

There are asbestos pipes running throughout the place though, and it needs all new plumbing and electrical work. The basement looks like it takes on water (though we can’t be sure). The kitchen needs to be redone, in addition to all of the other cosmetic work throughout the entire house, and it probably gets pretty warm inside during the summer. We’d also need to add a fence, and likely tear down the more dilapidated of the two garages on the property. The house is being sold as-is.

Despite its flaws, Brandon and I both really like the place! It has a lot of potential to be an amazing house. It would be expensive though. I love a good DIY project, but much of the work to be done there needs to be done by professionals. It would also be time consuming, and we can’t take on a renovation of that scale right now. Not with two little kids underfoot. And that’s why we passed on the crazy house.

All right, I’m off to make the basement more presentable. Gotta make sure we don’t earn any unfortunate monikers of our own.

May 27, 2013
House Touring in Oak Park, IL

I went on the Wright Plus Housewalk here, in Oak Park, over the weekend. There were nine private residences on the walk, all built between 1885 and 1925, with three homes by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The tour also includes admission to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, and Unity Temple. I just toured the home and studio recently, and I’ve been in Unity Temple before (our rehearsal dinner was held there!), so I skipped those on the day of the Housewalk. Plus the ticket for the public spaces is good through the end of 2013, and also includes the Robie House and The Rookery.

Interior photography was not allowed, so the only photo I can share is the one from the Cessna house (below), which was on the Housewalk’s site. There was so much woodwork in the homes — lots of rift and quarter sawn oak.

Next year, to mark the 40th annual Housewalk, the homes will be “All Wright.” Tourists visit Oak Park from around the world, and I imagine that the chance to tour eight private Frank Lloyd Wright homes will be a big lure.

My favorite home on the tour was the Flori Blondeel House II, built in 1914, by John Van Bergen. An addition in 2005 doubled the home’s footprint and modernized it, while still keeping the original style of the house intact.

All of the homes on the Housewalk were amazing, and it was interesting to note how many of them had undergone significant remodeling or restoration. Brandon and I are happy with our home after six years of working on it, but I also feel the pull to find a new house that we can fix up. (The dollhouse doesn’t count, of course.)

Brandon grew up in the Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District of Oak Park, and after walking around the area all day, I was charmed. We like our side of town, but if we can find an affordable house in the historic district that will work for our family, we’ll go for it. The smaller/outdated homes do pop up occasionally. We’re not in a hurry to move, but I suppose we ought to start preparing our house so that we’ll be ready when the right house hits the market.

May 20, 2013
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park

Brandon’s aunt and uncle were in town this weekend. His sister mentioned that they were going to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, and we were invited on short notice to tag along. Revisiting it was on my Lovely Life List, so I said yes. I took Eleanor with while Brandon stayed home with a napping August.

I’d taken the tour before in high school, but I’d been meaning to go again. It only takes an hour and we live 10 minutes away, so there’s no good reason for me not to have gone already. $15 buys you a ticket. $20 gets you a ticket and a permit for photography (personal use only). Eleanor, being 3, was free.

She loves it when I drag her along to these things. Culture, kid! (She was well-behaved, I promise. And contrary to my photographic evidence, she did enjoy herself at least somewhat.)

There are more than two dozen homes and buildings designed by Wright in Oak Park, at least three of which are for sale right now. For a little under $1 million, you could buy the George Furbeck house. The Thomas Gale house is listed at $849,000, or for rent at $4500/month. Spend a little more ($1,248,500) and you can buy the Martin house. And outside of Oak Park, there are plenty of Frank Lloyd Wright homes for sale.

If you want to see the private residences (without bothering real estate agents when you have no intent to buy, ahem), there is an annual Wright Plus Housewalk in Oak Park with tours inside many of the homes. It falls on May 18 this year, and I’ll be going. Only photos of the exteriors will be allowed, but there will be spring greenery and I won’t be bringing my kids along, so I should be able to get at least a couple of decent shots. I plan to visit the Robie House that day too, leaving only Taliesin East and Fallingwater on my list to see, while crossing off extras I hadn’t even thought to add.

Have you been in any of Wright’s houses? I don’t think I could live in one (budget aside, living in a time capsule would be too limiting), but they’re inspiring.

March 18, 2013
Shopping at the Cheese Market

Shopping at the Marion Street Cheese Market

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Brandon and I had a rare kid-free afternoon, so we went out for a lunch date at the Marion Street Cheese Market. It is a restaurant as well as a market, and after having one of the best meals I’ve had all year (Brandon’s was good, but mine was excellent), we still had some time left before we had to pick up the kids. We decided to browse the market side.

The wine selection is impressive. We don’t drink often, but I do love to see all of the labels and the rows upon rows of bottles.

Say “cheese.”

We spent more time than we intended to, reading all of the labels and trying to figure out which varieties to bring back home. We picked two that looked good, along with some meats and olives, and then we got to the really good stuff: the chocolates. We bought two of their fleur de sel caramels, and we picked up a few candies for the kids.

We don’t go out often enough, but we did bring everything we needed back home with us to recreate a little Italian night. We can wait until the kids are asleep and pop in a movie, sure, but I’m thinking we ought to take our date to go. With me working at home and Brandon watching the kids all day, getting out of the house is nice.

November 15, 2012
The View from the Chicago River

This post is sponsored by Chase – a strong supporter of the Global Cities Initiative, a program that helps foster local economic development. Learn more here.

I’ve lived in the Chicago area my entire life, and Oak Park is just fifteen minutes West of downtown by car or train (the ‘L’). I know the city pretty well, but sometimes it’s nice to see it from a different perspective. Like a scary open body of water perspective.

In all fairness, it’s only scary because I can’t swim and I’m afraid of water. Adding “Take the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s River Cruise“ to my Lovely Life List was really in large part to get me on a big boat.

The tour was fantastic and thankfully the boat ride itself was uneventful, save for a passing barge blasting its horn at us (presumably having some fun with the tourists). I jumped in my seat.

The view from the river isn’t the most beautiful way to sightsee, but if you’re at least passingly familiar with Chicago, it’s an interesting new view of the city. Many buildings along the river, especially the older ones, completely turned their back to it. Our tour docent explained that “the river was toxic, whereas now it’s merely polluted.” Brandon succinctly said “no one wants to overlook a toilet.”

The city cleaned up its river eventually (magic, I assume, or maybe magic green dye), and people began to view it as a desirable location a few decades ago. Couple a newfound interest in riverfront living with the go-go eighties economic boom, and you have a recipe for city growth. Chicago holds itself to following a larger plan as it grows (a blessing to come out of the rebuilding following The Great Chicago Fire), and city plans call for all new structures to include a riverwalk. There is some access today, but the Chicago River will someday have public walkways all along its bank.

Chicago is still seeing new buildings go up too, with Trump Tower and Aqua being two of the most notable recent additions to the river. The Spire would be noteworthy too, but it’s on hold after having only the foundation built. Its drill bit design isn’t my favorite, but it is admittedly interesting and I hope to see it completed.

There are still plenty of new buildings going up all around the city, including along the Chicago River. New buildings bring new residents, they stimulate the local economy, new money begets new growth, and so on. We have an ever-changing skyline.

May 31, 2012
Toronto

The weather was beautiful, the city was welcoming, and my tour guide was friendly.

I liked the Distillery District a lot. The whole place seemed to be set up as one big photo op! That’s Jennifer from Rambling Renovators in blue, one half of BlogPodium (the reason for my trip).

Lovely Life List item: check! ~~Cross the Canadian border, eh.~~ (Actually, I checked off two items, but I’ll talk about the keynote speech in a separate post.)

Thanks for having me, Toronto.

p.s. I tried poutine. It was good!

May 29, 2012