Liam participated in a model UN yesterday, which didn't finish until 5pm so after picking Miles up at school at 2pm, we had a lot of time for Miles to play on the playground with his friends. His friends left around 4 and Miles and I took a stroll up to Armitage, where we passed this very richly textured door then went for a mango italian ice (for me) and a root beer float (for miles.) I've been looking at a lot of flickr sites and blogs at work, during my searches for the Rand McNally Picture of the Week.…

The other brick house down the street was demolished this week. This is the house known as “Sandy’s house.” Sandy lived there with her aunt and uncle until they both passed away and Sandy moved to Florida. She was raised in the house and went to the church on the corner that is now an artist’s house, and she went to the school that is now another artist’s live / work space. Work has started on the foundations of 4 condo units that will fill the 3 now empty lots. Last glimpse of Sandy’s house.

Liam is participating in a model UN today where students debate on behalf of countries. Liam is representing Mongolia and while he looks very nice, we don’t think he looks very mongolian!

The speculation continues–the little house on the corner was demolished today. A guy standing out there watching it told me that Sandy’s house (the brick you can see on the right of the top photo), will also be knocked down and new construction will fill the 3 lots. I took this photo at 11:30am, by 2:30 the whole house was completely gone.

Rodrigo and crew did a fantastic and “freakishly fast” job drywalling then priming the walls. It’s starting to look like a living space now–though it also reminds me of a gallery mid-installation. Fresh paint smells and white walls. This shows the view looking toward the back from the windows. We have a really cool closet under the basement stairs–with a little teeny closet in the back. It’s the cutest closet ever. Closeup of the teeny closet Looking toward the front. One panel is not drywalled yet because a pipe in there needs to be replaced still. We had the ducts…

We got a piece of furniture for the dining room. It's an antique Chinese sideboard. This room is getting a theme! We are crazy about the new sideboard and hope it will hold many a delicious buffet. To highlight two very cool stores near here–the sideboard is from Wow & Zen on Damen (closing this location and having a big sale!) and the mancala-like game on top is from Cat 'n Mouse on Armitage. That socket under the largest picture is really prominently ugly now! Maybe if we have guests over we can encourage Liam or Miles to stand in…

Iggy, Matt's dog, comes to work with him sometimes. He's a really nice dog and has no problem making himself at home.

The dining room is transformed thanks to the vision and craftsmanship of master carpenter Matt. What started as a head room issue on the stairs has evolved into a built in bench with a hinged seat (currently filled in with a piece of plywood) for storage underneath. Brilliant solution! We will have room for a piece of furniture in the dining room over by the hanging lantern. Readers have asked about insulation in the basement. Today they installed lots and lots of insulation! And they drywalled the ceiling. New windows and a blooming forsythia bush make a huge improvement to…

Our daffodils are in better shape than previous years. Or maybe it’s just warmer and I can stand around looking at them for longer. This shot of the garden has 3 purposes: 1-to provide contrast for when things really start to grow in the next month or so, 2-to preview the exciting things we are doing with old windows around the fence, and 3- to show the new vegetable bed in process. I’m making the raised bed out of some beams that were pulled out of the basement. The bed is in a sunny area that wasn’t really planted for…

These flags with black ribbons are flying from houses and cars all around our neighborhood. Very sad.