I came across this loft conversion today on
Desire to Inspire. Isn't it great? I'm a big fan of lofts, and love the open space. A couple years ago our house was on a house walk. And one of the editors of
Chicago Home + Garden wrote it up on her blog, saying "One favorite was a gut conversion of a brick bungalow—inside it feels like a downtown loft." Kind of cool. Interestingly, we never considered that ourselves, but she's kind of right. When I met Brian, he lived in a warehouse loft in the West Loop. We eventually moved across the street to a smaller (1,200 sq. ft.) loft for a couple years. But in 1995, the opportunity came up for us to move back into that original building. It was 5,000 sq. ft. with ceilings that were 12-20 ft. high. And, needed a ton of work. Want to see?
The kitchen. Check out our heater!
This is what it looked like after the walls were ripped down and it was painted. Behind the doors was an awesome freight elevator.
Move in day! We had month to work on it, and it wasn't quite ready. Brian's dad essentially moved in with me to help for the month. Brian was in a band at the time, and I think he was home maybe 4 days that entire time. Not good planning. But then again, we started the gut renovation our current home a month before C was born. I guess that's kind of how we do things around here. Everything had to be pushed over to one side so we could paint the floors. We didn't even have the bedroom walls finished. (Can you find the bed in the picture below? I can't. I have no idea where we slept -- somewhere amongst this mess).
Eventually, it turned it something more like this. We did more to it as we went along, but essentially, this is what it looked like.
We didn't have much of a budget for this sort of
endeavour. We used a lot of drywall, particle board and scrap metal. Imagine what we could have done if we owned it! I know it's not for everyone, but we really liked living here. And until we became homeowners two years later, this is what we called home. Minus the very loud band practice that went on every weekend in the space below us for a year (so loud, we had to have a strobe on our phone so we could tell when it was ringing), it was good times, I tell you! I'm so glad we did it.
I came across this loft conversion today on Desire to Inspire. Isn't it great? I'm a big fan of lofts, and love the open space. A couple years ago our house was on a house walk. And one of the editors of Chicago Home + Garden wrote it up on her blog, saying "One favorite was a gut conversion of a brick bungalow—inside it feels like a downtown loft." Kind of cool. Interestingly, we never considered that ourselves, but she's kind of right. When I met Brian, he lived in a warehouse loft in the West Loop. We eventually moved across the street to a smaller (1,200 sq. ft.) loft for a couple years. But in 1995, the opportunity came up for us to move back into that original building. It was 5,000 sq. ft. with ceilings that were 12-20 ft. high. And, needed a ton of work. Want to see?
The kitchen. Check out our heater!
This is what it looked like after the walls were ripped down and it was painted. Behind the doors was an awesome freight elevator.
Move in day! We had month to work on it, and it wasn't quite ready. Brian's dad essentially moved in with me to help for the month. Brian was in a band at the time, and I think he was home maybe 4 days that entire time. Not good planning. But then again, we started the gut renovation our current home a month before C was born. I guess that's kind of how we do things around here. Everything had to be pushed over to one side so we could paint the floors. We didn't even have the bedroom walls finished. (Can you find the bed in the picture below? I can't. I have no idea where we slept -- somewhere amongst this mess).
Eventually, it turned it something more like this. We did more to it as we went along, but essentially, this is what it looked like.
We didn't have much of a budget for this sort of endeavour. We used a lot of drywall, particle board and scrap metal. Imagine what we could have done if we owned it! I know it's not for everyone, but we really liked living here. And until we became homeowners two years later, this is what we called home. Minus the very loud band practice that went on every weekend in the space below us for a year (so loud, we had to have a strobe on our phone so we could tell when it was ringing), it was good times, I tell you! I'm so glad we did it.
4 comments:
Oh...I LOVED that place! My baby shower was there! I especially remember the stairs leading up to it and how you guys had to carry Sky Pilot down them to get out side. You have and always have had impeccable taste! Each home you've made is perfect in it's own way.
That's true! See, good times!
Good grief, was it really that long ago? It was a cool loft. And I miss Greektown more than I can say.
I know, isn't it crazy? Honestly, I thought of your husband when I said "I know it's not for everyone." Poor guy moved in with us the week we were moving out of that space. He got to live through our packing. Probably not his favorite memory.
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