Old Irving Park Neighborhood was the area we used to drive by as the 22 year old owner of brand new Tango Sur and a Photography student from Columbia College. “Can you image owning a house here when we are old?”

It could be that the old version of ourselves we imagined was 30 year old. Who knows, but when we actually were 30 and bought this home here, we felt like we reached that goal way young! It was all thanks to the success Tango Sur had given us. It was not exactly one of the stately victorian homes we had our eyes on back then. It was a little brown shingles home that I wouldn’t have noticed if it didn’t have a for sale sign in front of it.

We came to see this and another, prettier home, Sergio felt like the pretty one up the street north of the highway was too small, he had to dunk to fit down the stairs even though he is not the tallest guy at all. Our home looks like a crazy cabin, but inside it’s shockingly spacious.

We’re both silly sentimental about old details, history and the way they built in the past. The wood trim creaky floors, old world feel.
There were houses with just a slightly higher price newly renovated, but if there was any detail, like the missing old real wood trim, or expensive cherry kitchen not my taste, we couldn’t fanthom paying extra for fancy things we don’t love. For two creatives, it made sense to do it all our way!

Destroying this kitchen didn’t feel that bad, it has served years. It was the not historically adorable part of the house. Our house was added onto 3 times, the kitchen was addition number 2 and 3c combined.

O was going through intense consumer quilt thise days, I was carrying new life ans concerned about their future. I still am, but pregnancy and small kids make you just that much more obsessive. I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty anyways.

We took the appliances to some of Sergio’s apartment buildings that had even older stuff. The green granite was going to get a new home as well, but it broke in the moving process. I feel terrible when natural stone is taken from the earth and then thrown into landfill in few years! We weren’t going to repeat that cycle, so our counter tops would be butcher block and corian. Not sure corian is exactly any better in the landfill than marble is, but this was were my mind was, no more mining, simple classy surfaces that don’t drive me or a new owner crazy as soon as they see them.

And then 3 years later: here’s our kitchen, looks like us, a little bit of mid century modern brownnes, with refreshing white details. We actually went opposite of the long standing finnish design back home, where everything is always white with small pops of color. In simpler words. This kitchen is way too brown for a typical Finn. I’ve been Americanized.

We went super light with the top cabinets beacause I just felt like it. I had to fight Coco, our carpenter hard for it, and since we’re family friends, my craziness was the talk of the town and eventually came back to me. But I got my way! Been happy ever since. The top cabinets are from cb2, meant for living rooms, media cabinets I think.
We replaced the need for space with tall pantry cabinets on the wall on the left. And the fact that the bottom cabinets aren’t just cabinets, but DRAWERS is huge in giving practical space!!

The L shaped kitchen cabinetry left a little breakfast nook space into the newest addition of the old home. As much as breakfast nook sounds so romantic, the name just didn’t help, I couldn’t imagine myself sitting here enjoying myself. First of all, that huge window as you can see, gives you a view of the garage roofs when standing, imagine sitting down…

It is not a nook anymore, cute name is gone. But we sit here countless of hours having a gourmet breakfast by Sergio, watch the season changes and bird visists even when it’s cold outside, which it mostly is in Chicago.

This is where me and my friends sit talking, again for hours, before we realize there’s a sofa right next to us. For american standards, it’s not really a dining room, it’s more of a european kitchen table, the table where life happens: dinners, baking, homework, and those long chats. Sometimes it is a lego city.

Little note on these antique radiators. You maybe noticed, the old photo has no radiator in this nook and the new renovation does, how is that?!? Well we got the idea of these gorgeous things from this house. They were one of the weird sentimental historical reasons we fell for this house. But not only for historical, it was practical too, it’s always practical for a Scandinavian isn’t it! I love radiator heat, I absolutely cannot stand the A/C “blow at your face” “temporary” heat. So we knew before buying a house, we needed one with radiator heat, and we would instal expensive stylish “in the wall” a/c even though we wouldn’t use it all year. And with “we” I might mean me this time. It was my obsession. One of those things I had to convince Sergio to. To my weird dry nose/cold feet issues with the blowing heaters. (I also tried floor heating on him, that didn’t pass) nevertheless, Sergio was the one who had fun with this project “hunt antique radiators” He loved their look too. And so he carried heavy radiators first into the house, on their places, and when I decided the led paint had to be removed in the basement, also, to the basement and back up. I admire the pregnant woman powers that move men sometimes!
Back to my point. Yes, the original home had these, the newest addition didn’t, so we bought more.

So what exactly was all that sentimental old stuff we loved?!? Looks like we didn’t love much about the original kitchen…

Here’s one of the highlights:

We live our original staircase! Well actually,

the house is from 1872, right after the Great Chicago Fire, so, I can’t claim I know this is all

original…