mani mondays

Happy Monday!
Did everyone have a wonderful weekend?

We stayed pretty busy and mostly focused on what food we were going to eat when (not that that's different from any other weekend). The Man took me out to a new burger place that was so delicious, I'll definitely be telling you all about it later.

dream house {shell house}

This house has been in our computer's toolbar for over a year now, and I finally thought it was time to share it with you. I know it's been popping up all over the over the interwebs over the past few years but it's just so beautiful you're going to have look at it again.

This is called the Shell House . . .

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Designed by Kotaro Ide of ARTechnic Architects and fabricated out of reinforced concrete, this home is located in the woods of Karuizawa.  Karuizawa is a town in the Kitasaku District of Nagano, Japan, and a common summer get away for residents of Tokyo.

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Built in 2008 the Shell House is used as a vacation home, and as such was designed with minimal maintenance in mind.  Most vacation homes in the area are wood villas that easily decay, this is why Ide chose reinforced concrete. From reading about the mechanical system, ventilation system, and the ideas behind the shape of the structure you can tell that a ton of thought and research went into building the home.  Everything was taken into consideration, including what happens to the house while you're away. Like the automatic antifreeze system that will kick in when the temperature outside drops below freezing, and the dehumidifying and ventilation systems that run year round.  All of which are energy efficient, and make it so there is less to fix or worry about when you come for your vacation, so you can just sit and relax in your beautiful secluded space.

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I cannot get over how gorgeous and unusual this house is.  How incredible would it be to drive up the rocky path and know you get to stay here for the weekend?!

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Floating fireplace? Yes please!

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The Shell House = A Dream House

date night in the suburbs

Saturday night The Man and I had a suburban date night.  Around 5pm, when The Man was finished at the shop, we drove out to Schaumburg to buy some frames at IKEA.  We got there and realized that, without knowing it, I dressed to match the swedish super store.

(cobalt blue and bright-ass yellow, oh yeah!)

We bought some IKEA swedish meatballs, but were too hungry to wait until we got home to eat, so we stopped at Portillo's.  Chicago dogs, onion rings, and sodas so large they'd get your arrested in NYC.  Portillo's is a chain restaurant in Chicago, they've got burgers, hot dogs, Italian beef, bacon burgers, chilli dogs, and fries fries fries. You can tell it's a midwestern kind of place from the menu alone.  When deciding what to eat I looked the menu up and down and noticed this:

Yeah, it's the kind of place that doesn't understand vegetarianism... and it's delicious.

Home improvement and hot dogs, that's my kind of date!!

mani mondays {easter!}

Happy Bunny Day!!

We used Easter as an excuse to have some friends over on Saturday night, I tried to dress up the house a bit, but I don't have much in the Easter decorations department. 

We got some flowers at the Trader Joe's and I cut them down to put in this herb pot trio (do you remember it from my indoor greenery post? I went out and bought it!).  I tried growing herbs in there but I'm terrible at keeping plants alive, the basil I bought died within a week.  But I love the look of bunches of short stemmed flowers, they're cuter that way:

We didn't paint eggs this year. I've forced egg dyeing on my friends almost every year since I came to Chicago, but this year it just seemed like too much work.  I'm also always left with about 2 dozen hard boiled eggs to eat by myself, which gets a bit gross a few days in.

Since there wasn't any egg dyeing, I broke out all my pastel polish colors and went crazy painting my Easter nails.

We kept it mellow on the day of and went to see a movie at our favorite theater.  The Man picked G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and it was Awful!!!! But seeing a movie and going for a walk is always a good time (especially when a movie only costs $5.50 a person).

So, do you have any favorite pastel moments from the weekend?

highboy

I'm a little late in posting this but, while we were in New York, The Man was in an art show here in Chicago.  The show, "Dissecting Art, Intersecting Anatomy," was put together as "an homage to the medical illustrations of Pauline Lariviere."  The Man had been working every night and weekend for weeks on this walnut highboy that was commissioned to be in the show.  We were a little bummed that we were unable to make it for opening night, but the response to his piece has been amazing.

His was the only piece of furniture in the show.  I asked him to write a little blurb about it for the blog and this is what he had to say:

"The idea behind the 'exploded' highboy was to reveal it's anatomy. Each joint is opened to show the joinery within. All the exposed joinery was done using modern joinery techniques which gave the piece a post modern aesthetic when paired with the very traditional Queen Anne highboy form. The glass in the doors and on the sides of the cabinet are original master plates from Pauline Lariviere's anatomical prints. These plates were featured and available to all the artists in the show. Looking at these plates and the beauty found within the human body inspired me to reveal the beauty inside my craft."

The Man and his team rigged up stripes of LED lights so the highboy was lit from the inside to highlight the artist's plates.  I love the photos of the piece lit up without any other lighting around it. It gives off this feeling of ominous elegance.

Here's a link to more photos. I am still in awe of how beautiful it is and, if you can believe it, it's even more stunning in person.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing that this is the first piece of The Man's furniture that I've posted on the blog.  That needs to be fixed asap!!

a trip too short

Our trip to New York the other week was so fantastic.  As always we had the best time with our NY friends.

On Sunday we went into the city and Dana showed me her favorite kitchen supply shop.  Bowery Kitchen Supply is in the Chelsea market, which has an abundance of super cute boutiques and bakeries.

Bowery was awesome, they had everything you could ever want and it was all very reasonably priced. I wish there was a place like this in Chicago, where you can find the random little uncommon kitchen accessories that you rarely need and can never find (although, I bet there is and I'm just not looking hard enough). 

After convincing myself I didn't need sake bottles "just because they're so cute." we went up to the highline.

And I got to see Jean Nouvel's 100 Eleventh Avenue Building (the building in the back with all the different sized windows), which I've been coveting ever since I saw the penthouse featured on HGTV over a year ago. 

On Monday we went to the financial district via the East River Ferry, which was really fun (and windy) and a lot faster than riding the 3 trains it would normally take to get there from Brooklyn. We went underneath the Brooklyn bridge which was pretty cool and I somehow recognized another gorgeous building I know from HGTV.

The Clock Tower Apartment, which is behind the bridge in this photo, is so cool, the clocks actually serve as windows!

This post is making it sound like I follow New York real estate but I swear those are the only two buildings I would recognize!!

It was a short trip, just a weekend, but it was non-stop fun and, once again, I can't wait to go back and have more adventures with this crazy bunch of lovely people.

mani mondays

I've been trying to do my nails every week, and this week was no exception.

Since this week was in between holidays I had a little more freedom to do whatever. So just two colors ("Va Va Voom" by Orly and "Borrowed & Blue" by Essie) and some scotch tape and voila!

st. patty's

Did everyone have a green-guinness-filled St. Patrick's Day?!

The Man and I chose to avoid the outdoors on Saturday.  Last year we went out for lunch and even at noon there were so many sloppy drunk people falling into the streets it was like playing frogger (except instead of a frog trying to avoid cars, the cars were trying to avoid people in dumb hats). So we kept it low key.  I love almost every holiday but St.Patty's Day has never been a big deal in my book, day drinking is one thing, but 8am drinking is just gross.

So to celebrate I painted some shamrocks on my nails and called it good:

concrete bunghole

Last weekend we went to New York to surprise our friend for his 30th Birthday.  It was so much fun to see everyone and gallivant around the city  for a few days.  Although we stayed in Brooklyn I decided to paint a mini city on my nails in honor of our trip to NYC.

 We walked along the High Line and the Chelsea Market, ate at Katz (again), and took the East River ferry from Brooklyn down to Wall Street to walk around the Financial District.

 It was a blast.

P.S. Just in case you don't know what the title is referencing...

I love Liz Lemon.

chicago bucket list {italian beef}

I completed something from my Chicago Bucket List!
This past Sunday I ate my very first Italian Beef sandwich, and it was. . .

 good.

I had Italian Beef with sweet peppers and garlic fries.  I liked it, but considering all the options at restaurants that serve Italian Beef I probably won't get it again.  It was a bit boring, and I was eying The Man's gyro the whole time.  We went to Grecian Kitchen up in Skokie, everything on their menu looked delish! I wanted my first Italian Beef sandwich to be a classic one, with no funny business, but if I ever had it again I would definitely go with the Italian Combo, which is italian beef and italian sausage on french bread, yum.

So, what about you? Do you wholeheartedly disagree? Have you even tried one before? I'd say give it a chance, but leave room for a gyro!