Sailing on a monday evening

Enjoying the sunset over Waukegan from Lake Michigan.







Summer is still going strong here so we are trying to make the most of it and get out on the lake as often as possible. Today Staszek made it home on time after work and we had two great hours of fresh Lake Michigan air. The wind was not that great, fortunately the sunset was.

Sunny study

A sunny Saturday afternoon...






Our house is full of nice little corners where you can sit down and relax. A favourite spot of the cats is the lounge chair in the study. In the afternoon when the sun comes in through windows from 3 sides, it's the perfect place for a nap.

4th of July

Independence day in Waukegan 2007: sailing in the afternoon and watch the evening fireworks from the boat in the Marina.

Sailing

Last year November we decided that we need to make use of the fact that we are living so closely to the fifth biggest lake in the world and purchased a small sailing boat. Our new place in Waukegan is three minutes away from a Marina at Lake Michigan so you can imagine how we spend our summer weekends and weekday evenings....We love it!

Visitors from Amsterdam

We had a great time with Marysia and Reinier who visited us for the last two weeks.
They were the first guests in our new place in Waukegan and were kind enough to help us with some of the last projects (assembling the bbq, cuttin a dead tree into pieces (thanks Reinier!), planting seeds, etc.).

We had drinks in the signature lounge, picknicked at Ravinia, went sailing and generally enjoyed the time together.

Finished!

After a too long renovation project can we finally enjoy our new, old house.

Pictures say more than words:













More pictures about the inside soon...

And a new roof...

And on top of all that, we also decided to have a new roof put on. First they were supposed to start last Tuesday, but there was a heavy thunderstorm alert. Then Wednesday, but there was rain forecasted (which did not come). On Thursday, a crew of 6 Polish guys arrived to attack the roof. They tore off all the all old shingles, repaired the underlying wood in some spots, fixed part of the roof that was damaged during the demolition of the addition and then covered it all up again with new shingles, flashing and vents. Everything looks good again and the most important thing is that we should not have any leaks any more. The inside decorating can begin!

New veranda...

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New chimney...

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New kitchen door

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New windows...

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New support wall in basement

One of the first items on our renovation plan: replace an old wooden support wall in the basement with a stronger brick wall. After a week of work, this project is almost finished and our house will stand strong for another 150 years!

More renovation...

Slowly we are making progress with the renovation of our new old house. Before getting to the nice part of installing the new kitchen and bathrooms, some more demolition inside needed to be done. The kitchen floor, ceiling and part of the walls had to be removed. So, that's what we did. Since the weather has picked up considerably, ie it was like summer today, we also spent some time in our garden-to-be, raking leaves and planting roses. It will go really fast now that the temperature is going up and before we know it, the street will be all green and lush. A very welcome change! Hopefully we will get our chimney to the fireplace opened this week, a new roof next week and then the interior part can start. We can't wait!