Serenity Now

Multisensory splendor in a backyard hideaway in Uptown

Dennis Rodkin

Major Minimalism

Empty nesters turn their apartment into a sleek space for two - and a fine setting for entertaining their brood

Mary Beth Klatt

Saving Grace

Designer Michael Abrams creates a sophisticated abode in a converted Lake View church

Kim Atkinson

Show Off

This past spring, 42 Chicago-area interior designers and 12 landscape pros took on the formidable task of adorning the 2007 Lake Forest Showhouse

Gina Bazer

Vintage for All

Wondering whatever happened to Tragara, that funky little vintage shop on Lincoln Avenue? It has been reincarnated in River North as K. Palmer, and it’s no longer so little.

Gina Bazer

Toto Access

The other ritzy, trade-only plumbing showroom to open in River North lately is Toto.

Gina Bazer

New Wave

Hydrology was created specifically to give designers and contractors an easy, well-edited place to source high-end plumbing and kitchen products outside of the Mart.

Gina Bazer

Need to Know ...

Design Diaries

Five local home blogs that keep us coming back for more

Gretchen Wahl

Dream Girl

The business model behind Haelo Design, a collaboration between furniture and object designer Helen Maria Nugent and her husband, architect Ron Kirkpatrick, is quite simple: she dreams; he builds.

Meredith Landry

From Europe, with Upholstery Options

For Kevin Schwartzberg, 11 years in the contemporary furniture business led to many trips to Europe

Gina Bazer

Sitting Pretty

You’ve got your mod crib and bouncy chair, but are you ready for the toddler years and beyond?

Gina Bazer

Wood Stock

With everything wooden and stumplike all the rage these days, it’s not surprising that Italy-based sculptor Ernst Gamperl’s handcrafted Italian oak vases and bowls are flying off the shelves at...

Laura Waters

Made-to-Measure Modern

After 15 years of custom-designing furniture for his clients, Chicago interior designer Michael Richman had created a bona fide furniture line, if only in his portfolio.

Gina Bazer

Pillow Talk

Channel your inner blueblood and have your monogram knit into a cashmere pillow in the colors of your choice.

Barri Leiner

A Designphile Lives Here

Help your friends find your home easily and give your street the gift of public art with this head-turning example of form meeting function

Barri Leiner

The Jet Set

There’s nothing more luxurious than setting your table with Nymphenburg

Barri Leiner

Cocktail Ready

Sculpture masquerades as a (three-leaf) table

Barri Leiner

A Touch of Glass

With vintage colored glass becoming increasingly collectible, new art glass is having its moment, too.

Barri Leiner

Standing Tall

Towel bars are so pedestrian

Barri Leiner

Changes at Home

Jan Parr

The Essential Mudroom

A once-humble home feature becomes—voilà!—the new must-have amenity

Karin Horgan Sullivan

Picture This

Decorating with art for the neophyte

Karin Horgan Sullivan

Special Delivery

Just in time for baby, a new kitchen and bathroom are born in Roscoe Village

Gina Bazer

Exposed!

Open shelves are so very cool, but what to put on them? A designer offers two solutions ...

Joanne Trestrail

A Little Night Music

High-society bandleader Stanley Paul throws an Old Hollywood–style party

Courtney Pitt

Rising Above It

A backyard prone to flooding becomes an opportunity to reshape outdoor space with architectural elements

Dennis Rodkin

Trailblazers

Inside the home of two modernists with a taste of timelessness

Gina Bazer