Forest Ave. I - A 100-Year-Old Stunner
Location: Wilmette, Illinois
We started with a nearly 100-hundred-year old house in Chicago's North Shore with a fabulous location and large yard. It had four bedrooms up (if you could call a large closet with a small closet inside a room...) and only one bath. A terribly dated and failing kitchen, unfinished basement, third floor playspace with a shower for people less than four feet tall, and a rotting wood deck out back finished the lackluster abode. We knew it had great potential.
During renovation, we added more than enough space for a young family, incorporating the new into the old for a seamless finish. The house entertained beautifully with an open galley kitchen and expansive living room that poured out onto a new slate patio for good weather, and an oversized dining room for the colder months. The owner’s favorite feature was the open stairwell that led to a huge finished basement, allowing for them to hear the kids playing below but without line of sight to their expected messes. When people complimented that you couldn't tell the new from the old, we knew we got this one right.