I just returned from a 3-week trip to England! My best friend got married at Stonehenge and then Michael and I took off to gallivant across the country. [gallery type="rectangular" ids="1705,1704,1703,1702"] (Michael put me on his shoulders to see) [gallery type="rectangular" ids="1708,1707,1706"] (buying wedding make-up in London!) (Coca Cola in...
While Chicago is still fluctuating between 50F and 85F in any given hour, real estate season is continuing as if it were 75 and sunny all day, every day. I am currently starting up the Wolcott project and, as we have started scope conversations, it gets...
Yesterday we were discussing window placement in the bathroom. This bathroom is on a gabled 3rd floor so the walls are relatively low which makes window placement above the toilet a strategic enterprise (e.g. "What exactly are we going for here?"). While standing in our...
Well it's May in Chicago here which means that one day it's late winter and the next it's the middle of the summer as far as the weather is concerned. I'm destined to die of pneumonia one day. We are in the throes of construction...
Even though I'm still walking around with a winter hat, apparently it's spring here in Chicago. My friendly, negotiating sub-contractors from the winter have become the overwhelmed, hardball version of themselves: Ally: "So, is that a yes?" Sub-Contractor: *grunt, shrug* Ally: "Great, see you next week!" The joy of...
So, I'm working on a project that I can't talk about right now for very good reason. It's killing me because there is a ton going on with this project that I'd love to be relaying to you and the pictures are amazing (not like...
Hello, spring! Real estate season is HERE. Holy cow. 5 closings and 2 new projects before May, yaaaaay. Good news! We got heat in the Kenwood house a couple weeks ago. The technician was very friendly. We are less than a month from completion and chomping at...
We are so close to being done with Kenwood! SO CLOSE...
I'd be lying if I said there weren't a lot of dreams crushed in the Kenwood house. I watch HGTV and DIY and those guys that build tree houses and am inspired to salvage EVERYTHING. When I walked into Kenwood last spring, one of the...
While we're submitting for Permit at the Hoyne house, drywall is going up in Kenwood - that is, of course, after we figured out how to get 10-foot sheets onto the upper floors (we took out a plank of the floor from the master bedroom...