Earlier this year I met Janet, a very talented interior designer who lives in a massive, gorgeous apartment in a vintage Logan Square 3-Flat. After I finished shooting Janet’s place, she introduced me to her upstairs neighbor Judie, a freelance photo stylist, and it wasn’t too long before I returned to photograph her equally amazing space (you can read all about it in last week’s issue of Time Out Chicago). Earlier this fall, I returned to the 3-Flat yet again to photograph the third unit – Mary’s apartment, which I also love and which has apparently changed very little since she and her late husband George bought the building in 1969. Prior to that, Mary, George and their three children lived in a nearby apartment that Mary’s parents owned, although they had begun searching for a more spacious home with modern amenities in the suburbs. Despite the supposed benefits, suburban life held no allure for Mary, who had grown up in the city and enjoyed taking the El downtown where she worked as an executive assistant for an import / export company. Unable to locate the right home in the suburbs, Mary convinced her husband to tour a newly listed 3-Flat in Logan Square that she’d always loved. “I’d wheeled the baby buggies passed that building a thousand times, and I wanted to see the inside of it,” Mary recalls. George and Mary toured the building and quickly realized that it was no ordinary city apartment. Each unit had a large entry foyer, gracious room sizes, four bedrooms and two full baths – ideal for their family. ”Make them an offer they can’t refuse,” Mary recalls telling her husband. He did, and the couple lived there together until George passed away in 1997. Mary loves living there to this day. “I’ve always loved it. I just feel so comfortable here,” Mary says. “This is it.” Thanks Mary!

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Mary has actually lived in the neighborhood since her parents bought a seven-unit building on Washtenaw in the mid-40′s. After World War II, apartments were hard to come by, and her parents wanted to make sure that Mary and her three siblings had a place where they could start out life with their spouses. At one point, Mary’s family occupied five of the seven units: her parents in the owner’s unit, Mary and her husband George in a unit and her three siblings and their spouses in the other three. Mary’s mother was such a beloved neighborhood figure that her likeness (silver hair with a bun) was included in this mural at Fullerton and Washtenaw.

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Kachina dolls from Arizona.

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Mary has owned this furniture longer than she has lived in the apartment.

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Mary bought many of her Lladro pieces on layaway. 

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Mary and daughter Kathleen. 

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Happy Thanksgiving folks. I’ll be spending the day with Mom’s side of the family in the house where I grew up. If history is any judge, after dinner, half the family will clean up while the XY half will nap wherever they happen to find a spot in front of the living room TV.  I’ll most likely wander around taking photos and inspecting the house to make sure everything is as it should be (familiar). In the kitchen, there’s a tall corner built-in cabinet with three sections, each of which is still lined with remnants of wallpaper that hung in the kitchen when I was a kid – the bottom section sports a red and white checked paper that dates back to my mom’s first kitchen remodel in 1979 while the upper cabinets are still lined with a fussy blue and white patterned paper that’s also long gone. The A1 and corned beef hash can always be found in that cabinet, just as the same books fill the built-in bookcases separating the living and dining areas. On the other hand, the house has WiFi and Mom loves her iPad, but it’s nice to know that some things change more slowly than others. Hope you have a great holiday. Cheers.

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I find Mom’s flour and sugar containers to be deliciously retro, especially the olive green screw on tops.

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Most of these books have been here as long as I can remember.

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A long metal turnkey opens the original front porch windows. The walls were coated with pebble-dash like the exterior of the house. As a kid, I’d throw the basketball against the side of the house. Bam, bam, bam, bam, each bounce sending a cascade of pebbles to the ground. Now I’m appalled (and the wall is kind of bald).

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My mom’s built-in medicine case with the original bead board backing. A hinged mirror closes to cover it. I feel 15 again when I look into the magic mirror – but with some wear. As my friend Matt once said, You might think I don’t look 35, and I might think you don’t look 35, but when I was 16, I knew a 35 year old guy when I saw one. 

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This is my room. As a pre-teen, I fought passionately for this wallpaper. Behind that door is a walk-in closet with a door to another walk-in closet – one of the the many strange closets I’ve had. 

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This is my Mom’s den.

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According to family lore, I’m like 1/96th Native American.

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At night, the kitchen always has this cold glow, but florescent bulbs were green before green was cool. 

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They really built them to last in the old days, didn’t they? This one keeps on chugging. Maybe I’ll use it as wall decor? Na.

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That’s my cousin. He’s a good kid. Just two short years ago, he was (for some odd reason) terrified of the monster in the basement. I finally admitted that the monsters probably don’t live there anymore, and now he seems to like it down there. 

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A few months ago, I was chatting with my neighbor, Judy, who is sort of a neighborhood legend, known for her involvement with the community and the local church (not to mention the raucous back porch card parties she throws on warm summer evenings). For decades, Judy has watched neighbors come and go, so she’s a font of  information about the history of the neighborhood. My apartment was kind of a disaster when I moved in five years ago, and I’ve always been curious about what it looked like in its original pristine condition. (Who decided to tear out the pantry, because I want to have a word with them). So naturally I peppered Judy with questions: Had she ever seen my apartment’s original vintage kitchen? (No). Who had replaced it with such an unattractive remodel? (The man-hating (but not lesbian) women who shared the unit for several years). Who had let the back yard become so overgrown and why? (Past tenants, absent landlord). While her recollections were fascinating, I still had more questions than answers, so I asked Judy if she had ever taken any snapshots inside what is now my apartment. At that, Judy, who has presumably never seen this blog, started laughing wildly. “Do you think I’m crazy or something? What kind of screwball would take photos inside somebody else’s apartment?”

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Photo: Neither Judy nor I live in these Lakeview 2-flats, however they do neighbor one another.  

Few things are more eco-friendly than recycling, which is something that vintage enthusiasts have been exclaiming since the first “green” products began hitting the market several years ago. This year, the Museum of Science and Industry acknowledged this fact by selecting Scout owner Larry Vodak to curate version 3.0. of their Smart Home, which I toured last week. While the inspired exhibit has always impressed, Vodak’s vision has imbued the space with the same kind of soul that pervades Scout and my other favorite haunts. One of my favorite elements are the upper kitchen cabinets, which are vintage steel cabinets from the University of Chicago science lab. If you haven’t visited yet, check it out. Smart Home 3.0 is well-worth the trip. Click here for more information about the Smart Home. Click here for more information about Scout.

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After the exhibit closes on January 8th, 2012, Larry will be selling many of the furnishings at his Andersonville shop, Scout, so ask if you see something you can’t live without.

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This is one of my (many) favorite Ted Harris pieces.

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Another Ted Harris piece, this chandelier was made from old fluorescent light bulbs.

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The open upstairs landing makes an ideal place for an office.

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This Italian bed is one of the few new pieces. I love it. What do you think?

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In the garage, a cool way to grow plants.

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Larry Vodak

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In the four-bedroom Lakeview apartment Barri Leiner Grant shares with her husband and two daughters, seashells, mattress ticking and weathered antiques commingle with crystal, velvet and silver to create a handsomer, more dapper beach aesthetic that reflects both her New Jersey roots and her professional experience as a photo stylist, entrepreneur and author of several books, most recently Jersey Girls: The Fierce and the Fabulous, which she co-wrote with longtime friend and business partner Marie Moss. The book is a scream – funny, vibrant and nostalgic with great recipes (Laura Plimpton & Martha Stewart’s Jersey Girl canned tomatoes), illustrated guides (How to Eat a Lobster), tons of ephemera and some (thankfully) Snookie-free celebrity dish. Flipping through its pages feels a bit like wandering around from booth to booth at a fantastic flea market, so I thought you guys might enjoy it. For more about Barri’s apartment, please check out my recent story in the Chicago Tribune.

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Photo (top) by Chicago Tribune photographer Bill Hogan.

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This canvas tote ($22), which is available from Barri and Marie’s company, M & B Vintage, would make the perfect beach bag or a great gift for the vintage enthusiast in your life.

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Top photo: The dining room in my Edgewater Glen apartment. Bottom photo: The family room in my friend JB’s Highland Park home, which I’ve photographed twice, the first time a couple of years ago for a Strange Closets Open House and the second time earlier this year for the North Shore magazine Make It Better.

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Sharing a proclivity for vintage astronomy prints is one thing (I stole the idea from an Elle Decor spread). But coupled with a blue painting? What are the odds? Because my good friend, Rebekah Zaveloff, of KitchenLab and Design in a Bag, redesigned the kitchen and helped JB decorate the rest of the place, I wondered if they might be having a little fun with me, but they say no. What do you think?

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1. Indeed I was punked by JB and Rebekah.

2. The universe is sending me a coded message, and I should skip the jokes and more diligently attempt to decipher.

3. Great minds . . .

4. As coincidences go, it’s really not that remarkable.

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Click here to read all about JB’s renovation in Chicago Home + Garden. Click here to read about the decor in Make It Better. Scroll below for more photos of JB’s fantabulous home. Thanks JB and Rebekah!

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Thanks to Rebekah Zaveloff’s design, this might be the most published kitchen of the past decade. Not too difficult to see why eh?

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This is a Victorian-style Foursquare. Note the four square door frames.

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Not to mention the peacock pillow, which may also be viewed as ominous in light of this post.

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Who loves this house? (I never get tired of that one).

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It was only after I’d finished photographing Janet Friedman’s brilliant Logan Square four-bedroom home that I realized that what felt like an hour had actually taken three. Artists and athletes often speak of a state of intense concentration when time seems to stand still, and I often experience the phenomenon when shooting places like Janet’s, which is chock-full of interesting antiques, decorative vignettes and lots of outsider and naive art. This state of consciousness or “flow” seems inherent when people concentrate intensely on an activity they love, and Janet told me that it happens to her when she decorates, which might explain why the interior designer and owner of JRF Interiors offers a fixed day-rate where she spruces up her client’s home using their own things.  Thanks Janet!

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Click here for past home tours.

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From my recent Chicago Tribune piece about Janet’s apartment. Tribune photography by Bill Hogan.

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Have you ever seen anything like that silver screen? If I could swipe one piece in the entire apartment, that would be it.

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Vintage automobile hood ornaments!

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To add interest, Janet painted the wood table legs silver.

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A deco light hangs in the original kitchen.

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The second bedroom is located off the front foyer.

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Janet created this art installation using vintage items and ephemera in her fourth bedroom / atelier.

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Andrew Hollingsworth bid Chicago adieu in 2009 when he relocated to San Francisco, trading in his 3400 square-foot Lake Shore Drive condo for a bright and sunny studio with a sleeping loft and large corner windows that overlook the surrounding hilltops. Located at the end of a long, narrow path behind an old Pacific Heights Victorian that was rumored to have been built by the Gump family and which survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage, the studio was added in the 50′s or 60′s, and its clean lines seem tailor made for Andrew’s elegant collections of mid-century Danish furniture and contemporary art. Downsizing into a smaller space required creative solutions and ruthless editing, but the result is so fantastic. To learn more about how he did it, please check out my recent Chicago Tribune article. Thanks Andrew!

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Click here for Andrew’s Chicago Open House. Click here for past Open House tours.

Click here for Andrew Hollingsworth’s fine twentieth century Danish furnishings website.

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People often ask me how I find so many great spaces for Strange Closets, and the answer is several-fold: 1.) Sometimes interior designers e-mail me photos of their completed projects, and sometimes normal people do too. I appreciate nearly all of them and being poly-aesthetical, I love quite a few in one way or another. 2.) When I meet somebody interesting at a party or social event who tells me about the yurt in their back yard, for example, I try to finagle an invitation in a tactful way (usually by asking after they’ve consumed a few drinks). 3.) Buying furniture on Craig’s List has also been a surprising effective way to discover great apartments. That’s how I met Christopher and Joe, about whom I wrote for this week’s Time Out Chicago. The longtime partners have always had an affinity for vintage goods and even owned an antique store in Andersonville in the 90′s. Now Christopher owns his own estate sale company, Christopher Estate Sellers, and also works for designer extraordinaire George Arduser at his Andersonville home shop George Lowell. Christopher and Joe are very cool guys, and their amazing place is chock full of mid-century treasures. Click here for the full story + photos in Time Out Chicago.

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Fun Fact, Wednesday Edition

This isn’t the first time that Christopher has lived in a magazine house. The home where he grew up was featured in Better Homes and Garden in 1968. Looks like a great place to grow up.

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Johanna Lowe’s 150 year old Buchanan, Michigan home is one of the many country cool spaces featured in the latest issue of Chicago Home + Garden. Like many before her, Johanna, was charmed by Buchanan’s excellent, relatively inexpensive housing stock and charming downtown, which includes amazing home design and antique shops like Front, Thomas Jolly Home & Garden and Alan Robandt Antiques. In fact, it was Alan who first introduced me to Johanna not long after she bought the place two years ago (Gracias Alan!). Although Johanna, a food photo stylist, was in the middle of expanding and modernizing her kitchen at the time, I finally had the pleasure to photograph her amazing home last year, and I thought you might enjoy my scouting shots. Please pick up a copy of Chicago Home + Garden’s May / June 2011 issue (on newsstands now) for the full story along with Matthew Gilson’s gorgeous photography. Thanks Johanna!

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Don’t miss Buchanan’s 3rd annual Unsanctioned event on Saturday, May 28th for live music, food, art, crafts, food, antiques, and shopping. Click here for more information. Click here for past Open House posts.

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