Strange Closets

I don’t write about this much, but by now you’ve probably deduced I’m psychic.  Strange coincidences are always happening to me.  During one recent Open House photo shoot, I was picking up all kinds of information and even sensed a river running along the back of the lot long before I was in a position [...]

Painter Gail Potocki’s Rogers Park condo is equal parts Victorian and Moroccan with a liberal mix of outside influences, vintage odds and ends (including trinkets made by our Victorian ancestors from human hair) and lots of taxidermy: a crow, a doe, y’want moe?  How about a peacock?  The list goes on and on. Gail’s rich, [...]

12:49 a.m. Can I be honest with you?  It’s now 12:49 a.m., and I don’t feel much like writing a post.  I could tell you I’m going to bed, but I’m not, although that’d be a good way to end the post.  Like, Ok, now I really am tired, so I actually will be heading [...]

Thanks to Father Jason Malave for allowing me to take photos as he showed me around the parish rectory. Father Jason is an old gym buddy turned good friend, so while I’ll do my best not to tease, I can’t make any promises.  Also, I don’t call him Father Jason in real life.  Nor do [...]

I’ve got several deadlines to meet this week, so please forgive this abbreviated Open House.  It’s a sequel of sorts, as I featured Nick and Rebekah’s Michigan farm house back when summer was still groggy but awakening from its winter slumber.

Our mom was nervous when my brother and his wife moved into the building directly across the alley from my 2 flat.  We weren’t close as kids (translation: he thought I was a dork), but we’d spent more time together since he moved to Chicago several years ago, and we discovered that we’re as similar [...]

Thanks to Nalani, a Strange Closets reader, for emailing me about her good friends James and Blue.  From the curb, the couple’s home, with its brick and siding exterior and prominent garage, looks lovely but very traditional, so I was surprised and delighted by the home’s global influences, peaceful energy and most importantly, its fascinating [...]