The Editorial Team

7 min read

Our North Shore Home Renovation - Before, During & AFTER!

Written by Olive Well brokers Lauren and Charlie Wood.

We never imagined we would take on a large scale renovation and move to the suburbs. But after the pandemic hit and life changed for everyone we thought, why not now?!

Shortly after we first met, Charlie and I moved into a small one bedroom in the Gold Coast and totally renovated it. You can read more about our first renovation here. Then, shortly after that we moved into a new construction townhouse in Bucktown and didn't do much renovating, rather we just decorated. For our third and current home we did the big burb jump and took on a 110 year old house renovation in Highland Park. You can read more of the back story in our North Shore Project Part 1 and Part 2 where we shared our plans, before and during photos and some inspiration boards. And now for the big reveal....our after photos! It's been almost 2 years and our house is finally starting to feel like a home. As Realtors in the Chicagoland area we see a ton of homes. We pulled inspiration from many of the homes we have shown, both in the city and on the North Shore, and one in particular at 500 Superior gave us the idea to find a home where we could make his and her bathrooms and closets. The Howard Van Doren Shaw home we bought from 1910 was the perfect subject with it's tiny bedrooms that worked well to transform into a luxurious primary suite.

We are thrilled are home was featured in the latest edition of Sheridan Road Magazine for the May 2023 issue. If you're thinking of renovating an old home, we'd not only love to help you find that home but we are also happy to help guide you on your renovating journey since we absolutely love a transformation. Or if you're thinking of sprucing up your current home, we'd love to share our experience, opinion, and some of the things we learned along the way.

Thank you to our designer Jessica Margo Design and our contractors Xced Design Build for helping us create our dream home. And a special thanks to Brent Borchardt for photographing our home and Darwin Fitz for the florals.

Reach out if you have any questions and we would love to hear your feedback in the comments below. You can reach us at lauren.mitrickwood@compass.com and charlie.wood@compass.com

Welcome to our home...

The Kitchen - Perhaps one of the biggest transformations. We opened up the wall to the dining room, removed the soffit, changed the size of the windows and created an island. The stone compliments the European oak cabinetry and light oak flooring. We wanted the cabinets to go from the counter to the ceiling to maximize storage and we also utilized garages to reduce clutter on the counters. We designed a custom hood and added a tiny shelf above the stove. One thing we highly recommend is a thicker countertop for the island.

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Entryway - Adding can lighting to this entryway was key. We also took out the carpet from the front steps and painted the entire staircase to match the cabinets in the kitchen and dining room.

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Dining Room - We opened up the dining wall so you could easily access the family room. We love the sight-lines this created. This room caused us the most pain as halfway through the project we discovered some structural issues and needed to redo the entire ceiling and support beam to the living room. We also added wine and beverage coolers and small bars on either side of the dining entryway with antiqued glass above it. Keeping the original leaded glass was a must and for those of you that hate painting old wood - sorry we just had to paint it white!

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Living Room - Not much changed in this room except the furniture, curtains and we took down the wooden mantel above the fireplace and added a statement light fixture. We loved the chunky stucco walls in this room and decided to keep them as is along with the old slate tiles. We really debated if we should keep the radiators or add HVAC. Ultimately we decided to keep them since radiant heat is not only a cleaner heat and is less drying, but we really liked the look the old radiators provided.

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Family Room - Not much changed in this room except we pulled up the carpet and changed the fireplace mantel. You can see in the during photos the wall that we opened up to connect to the dining room. We also decided to add can lighting (a must!) and another statement light fixture.

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Charlie's Den - Charlie had full creative license in this room and he chose to go super moody and masculine. First he used the leftover marble from the dining room bar for the new fireplace surround. Building off of that he added wallpaper, painted the ceiling, window trim, radiator and original bookshelves deep mauve and aded lighting to the bookshelves. Finally, he found a light that pulled it all together in a mid-century James Bond-y way.

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Sunroom - The only thing we did in this room was redo the floors, add lighting and hang some swings. We were tired of seeing the Serena and Lily swings everywhere and opted for these "so ugly they look cool" swings that our designer found.

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Mudroom - The original mudroom housed the laundry which was right off the kitchen. We decided to move this upstairs for convenience and more space which allowed us to create a pantry, room for a steam oven, and a dog wash. You will see the new and improved laundry room later on. We still kept a European laundry machine which washes and dries and is in the cabinet to the right of the dog wash. The black and white tile is one of our favorite parts of this room.

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Top of the Stairs - Once again we didn't do much up here. We wanted to keep the original hutches so we just took up the carpet to refinish the original flooring, added a light and painted the banister. Our clients gifted us the light fixture when they bought this home and wanted to swap it for something else in their primary bedroom. A special thank you to them and to Charlie's mom for gifting us the mirror!

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Primary Bedroom - Curtains and a new light sure can go a long way. Oh, and of course we pulled up the carpet yet again to expose the original flooring. We did love and appreciate some of the past owner's furniture. We tried to buy some of it, but that didn't work out. I loved this headboard and her mid-century modern furniture. In the future we plan to get a new headboard but for now we just worked with what we had in our last home.

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Lauren's Bath - A single sink was not going to work for a primary bathroom so instead we made his and her bathrooms. This bathroom was completely re-worked and expanded to make room for a vintage piece of furniture that was retrofitted to make into a vanity, and a stand alone shower and tub. Perhaps the biggest shocker here is that we picked tumbled travertine for the floor. That was used mostly in the early 2000's and is rarely seen in a new renovation. We wanted to make this bathroom feel like we were stepping into a hotel in Europe hence some of the selections including the true stone tile floor in the shower and the plaster walls.

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Charlie's Bath - This might be one of our favorite transformations. This tiny bathroom was an ensuite bath in a smaller bedroom next to the primary. It was the perfect place to convert into Charlie's more masculine bath and closet. We stole some space from a small closet that was originally in the bedroom to make room for a larger vanity and stand alone shower.

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Charlie's Closet - Charlie's closet was perfectly suited for one of the aforementioned odd small rooms upstairs. What was once an office became a spacious closet, one that often doubles as an office. We call it a "cloffice." We had to sacrifice the original fireplace that was in the room but were able to build the closet around the wall safe that was above it and hidden by the art on the wall when we bought the home. Its contents remain a mystery despite attempts to open it...

And if you are looking to see Lauren's closet we will save that for another day. She is a bit of a slob (hence the his and her closets) and her closet was not ready for photo day. LOL

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Laundry Room - Back in the day when the house was built there was no air conditioning so instead they created sleeping porches. You can read more about them here. When reworking the floor plan upstairs we often coined this room "the useless room" since we really didn't have any purpose for it. We finally decided it would be the perfect laundry room. The only downside is you have to walk through one bedroom to get to it. We kept the original bead-board which worked nicely with the dark green cabinets.

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