Welcome! I’m so excited about giving you this “before” picture tour of our new house–it is a tour of the house before we moved in, before any cleaning whatsoever, and before any changes were made to make it livable for us in the short term. My guess is that your reaction will fall somewhere between, “Wow, this place is so great!” and “Uh, are you sure you know what you’re getting into?” Whether you land on one end of the spectrum or the other or somewhere in between, I hope you catch a little bit our enthusiasm for what it could become, what we might discover, and what there is to learn along the way.
The house was built in 1876–let’s quickly pause for mental math (it’s 144 years old). It was built a few years after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and exterior walls are 12″ thick masonry in accordance with the then ‘new’ post-fire building laws. Our house originally started out as 3 units (one per floor); and at one time, it was heated with coal and was illuminated by gas fixtures. It’s amazing to think that at the time it was built, Alexander Graham Bell was testing the telephone, and today we have the ability to control just about everything in a house from a cell phone! (Well, obviously not this house…yet.)
In 2006, the City of Chicago designated our block an historic landmark district. (If you’d like to read more about the Bissell Street District’s history and landmark designation, click here.). Each of the buildings was designed by Ivar C. Zarbell, who crafted a cohesive appearance of the block’s 20 buildings by using common materials and aesthetics. Over time, many of the ‘stacks’ of flats have been combined to make single family homes or homes with a larger upper unit and lower garden rental (like ours) while a number remain in the original three flat configuration.
I’ll be talking about each of the rooms in greater detail in future posts so, for now, I’ll let the pictures tell the story and walk you through a tour.
Enjoy and let me know what you think!
The "Before" Tour
Click any picture to begin the tour
Looking forward to keeping up with the transformation of your beautiful house on Bissell!
Thank you, Diane! I’m so glad you are along for the adventure.
WOW! HATS OFF TO YOU AND YOUR DETERMINATION IN MAKING THAT DOOR BEAUTIFUL! I CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW REWARDING IT WAS. ANXIOUS TO SEE THE FINISHED PRODUCT. LIKED THE TIPS AND TRICKS IN YOUR PROCESS.
Thanks, Judy! You know—one down, several more to go!