CASA MARGARITA - PART ONE

This is the outside of my ex-house in Chicago. It is in Rogers Park, which is as far north as you can go and still be in the city of Chicago. It was named Casa Margarita because of the color. In some light it looks more green; others, like this shot, it appears yellow.

The front, enclosed porch. It was only place in the house I could use the Mexican tile and not have it look ridiculous. This is a prairie-style house and Mexican tile is definitely not in keeping with the style.

This was the library/living room. The fireplace was some hideous color, so we painted it teal. What you can't see is the entire wall of bookcases and the original pocket doors.

This is the bathroom on the first floor, with the original green and white tile. This shade of pink was truly the only color that looked good with the tile. Then I found a fabric for the shower curtain that allowed me to have more than just pink and green in the room. The shot is a bit blurry. It was a very hard space to take a picture of.

The family room, with the area to the left and the kitchen to the right.

Can you find all 5 cats?

The fireplace in the family/dining/kitchen area. The flash is making the walls look less green than they really are. See above picture for the green color.

My dream kitchen, even though I don't like to cook.

Another view.

An old chest and curio cabinet I painted.

Close-up of chest top. I painted this all by hand, with no taping to make sure the lines were straight. I think I did a pretty good job, especially since I can't really paint or draw.

As I said before, when you live in Chicago and the sun tends not to shine very often and winter lasts about 8 months (or so it seems) you have to do something to brighten things up. My way was to paint every room a different tropical color. All of these were crayola colors. These pictures are of the first floor, though I left off a couple of rooms. The house had 3 floors plus a full basement that was also painted using the leftover paint from the rest of the house.

Tomorrow, I'll post the second and third floors.