“BEFORE AND AFTER” SHOTS OF OUR LOG HOUSE IN RIVERWOODS
This place was twenty-plus years old when we bought it and needed more TLC than we could afford at the time.
Over the next ten years, we enlarged and updated it without ever expanding into the woods.
▼ BEFORE, July 1985: This is how the house looked from the street when we bought it. We knew we would be changing it, even though at that early stage we had no clear idea what the changes would be. But we loved the location and setting and were confident we could come to love the house, too. And we did!
▲ AFTER, May 1988: In 1987, with the help of a talented local architect, we had raised the roof to create a master-bedroom suite and a larger, higher, and brighter foyer just inside the front door. This photo shows the house after it was stained, with red tulips blooming. Quite an improvement!
▼ BEFORE, July 1985: Rear view of our house when we bought it. The big screened porch (20′ x 18′) is at the far left, hidden behind the runaway shrubbery.
▲ AFTER, spring 1988: By now, we had raised the roof, restained with a brighter color, brought the shrubbery under control, and planted a lovely crabapple tree. The screened porch where we spent much of our relaxation time and hosted parties through three seasons is visible on the far left.
▼ BEFORE, July 1985: This long bedroom facing our driveway was the one we took for ourselves when we first moved in, before we raised the roof in 1987. The end not seen here became part of the foyer then.
Bernie converted a similar bedroom to the right of this into his first-ever painting studio, while I set up the third, smallest one as my writing room. After the construction project was done, I turned what was left of this room into a multi-purpose office, and we used the smallest one as a guest room.
▼ THE SAME ROOM AFTER WE RAISED THE ROOF FOR A NICER BEDROOM: Sugar on her favorite high perch atop my desk in the space that previousluy had been our master bedroom.This is the place where I wrote my first novel, Rubies of the Viper.
This space had everything I needed: my Mac SE, printer, and scanner; a room-spanning bookcase; windows with great woodsy views and a more-cheerful interior; my favorite CDs and a boombox; plus a cat tree for the two kitties, Snooty and Sugar, who joined our family after José Gato died in 1991. (See them both in the photo at right.)
▲ AFTER, spring 1988: José Gato (who was 17 at that time) enjoys a nap in our brand-new upstairs bedroom. Seen here are the back woods, but we had the same window arrangement on the front of the room, overlooking the driveway and a massive oak tree.
The bathroom had those skylights, too, which made both spaces “interesting” when lightning flashed or squirrels and raccoons peered down at us from above.
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▼1992: Our newer kitties, Snooty (top) and Sugar (bottom), in their high-rise condo by the window in my office, which gave them an exciting view of birds in the big tree (not visible in this shot) and things happening in the garage and on the driveway.
▼ ▼ BEFORE, July 1985: These shots show the kitchen when we moved in. The ceiling, beams, and other walls were wood, too, just as they were throughout the place. As I told our first visitors, “This is the brownest house you’ll ever see.”
▲ ▼ AFTER, 1992: You can tell from our remodeled kitchen that, after six years of cooking in the original version (at left), I wanted a bright, modern space with a display cabinet for my colorful crystal.
▼ ▼ BEFORE, July 1985: Bernie and me together—and then Bernie by himself—on the brown-carpeted floor of the empty living room soon after we closed on this, our first real house.
▼ ▶ AFTER, 1995: our remodeled, refurnished, and brightened-up living room.
ABOVE and LOWER RIGHT: These photos show two of the four kitties who shared our homes during our marriage.
▲ Snooty, our beautiful Calico, was a love, but she had issues and didn’t live nearly as long as our other cats.
▶ Sugar, our tiny tiger—caught in the act of leaping from the floor to our dining table—lived long and well to her twentieth year.
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ AFTER, ten years later: our remodeled, refurnished, and brightened-up living room.
The room went through two stages of modernization. The first one is visible in the separate section about our parties and fun times.
Return to: Our Life in Riverwoods / Before and After Photos / A Few of Our Parties / My Political Decade