Please tell me about that light plinth leading into the bathroom.

FASCINATING!!!

oh my gosh! I LOVE their living area and their kitchen! Everything about this house screams... I'm hot but you can live in me too!!! :) I wouldn't change a thing! (How cool is that too that it's a coach house?!?!?)

Absolutely love this home!

But please, please share the name of the manufacturer (or pattern) of the bedroom wallpaper!

Love this house. Love the bedroom's blue wallpaper and orange bedding/side tables. Love the light plinth at the bath - is that the edge of the shower? I just love the casual sophistication. Love the kitchen shelves. Perfect balance of relaxed and refined.

Also love the orange-red painted i-beam.

where did the floating kitchen shelves come from? beautiful place!

Love the main floor I am leaning toward that look, where the furniture and accessories take center stage, it looks so clean and classy.

Great job I'm sure you enjoy living there; I would.

Lovely home and lovey story

Nice job neighbor. The tile was worth it! Looks great and makes me lament my scuffed up paint in the entry way. <3 , uke village.

We have the same wood stove! Clearly we have excellent taste :)

Lovely home.!!
2 boys and white sofa and a chair...How do you do it seriously.

I'm loving that kitchen!!

The bathroom is fabulous!

Love it! Q: Is this a family bath or a master only?

There is not one thing I dislike about this place. Fantastic all around! Great job!!!

please tell me where you got those orange, tie dye throw pillows for the bed? they're awesome!

chelsealynla.blogspot.com

The TUB. Oh the tub. It's all too much. Great outdoor space too.

I'm clicking through, but only DESPITE those too-fussy 45-degree perched pillows. (They are cute pillows, btw.) The wooden bath looks intriguing.

Freaking amazing!! Modern done warmly with touches of vintage.

I know this gets said a lot, but it looks like everything was chosen for a specific emotional response and story to tell.

I especially love your outdoor space.

What's the blue paint color in the bedroom?

Gorgeous home! Totally dig the outdoor areas too!

Beautiful home Brenda and Harry! My faves:
- Dining area with magnificent light fixture
- Rustic stools in the bathroom
- Amazing windows leading into the yard

It seems lovely to live here!

Vibrant and alive. It looks lived in and playful, yet totally sophisticated. Love the use of orange and those lamps in the master bedroom are too cute.

I just now saw it's wallpaper.

I love it. Utterly chic without seeming to try too hard, while remaining warm, relaxed and livable. I have the same Ikea chairs that are used in the dining room. They seem especially elevated in this environment!

I'm so in love with the plexiglass desk under the stairs. Where did you find this gem? It would look perfect in a teen's room for homework. Love your house.

You can find those desks lots of places. eBay has a few for sale, and if you google acrylic furniture you'll find a bunch.

Great space...rock on Chicago!

Of all the gorgeous places I've seen on Apartment Therapy, I think this is my favourite. It strikes a perfect balance between chic, homey, eclectic and funky. Well done! A pleasure to see, so thanks for sharing

Lovely. What is covering the kitchen floor?

I've visited apartment therapy almost daily for months and, until I saw this post, have never felt compelled to register. This - to me - is what a home should be like. It's a perfectly thought out and beautiful living space that seems to have been designed around maximizing that joys that a home can offer to life. Congratulations! It looks like the five years was worth it...

Laughing at... what friends say and biggest embarassment.

I love this home! Very nice mixture of textures (love the huge leather ottoman mixed with the tweed like couches and the rustic floating shelves with very modern cabinets). Your kitchen layout is beautiful and my goodness, that tub! I don't even like tubs, more of a shower girl but I would never kick that tub out of my bathroom.

Five years was not wasted my friends...

this place feels open, filled with light, and family friendly.

ok, i'm coming from a place of curious ignorance: what makes a place a coach house? and a carriage house? are they different from each other? thx!

Very nice, beautiful finishes, furniture. Obviously all very expensive as well. But a nice fantasy just the same!

Favorite house tour on Apartment Therapy ever.

I wish I had a better sense of the place from the photos. I can't seem to get my head around the bathroom entry or the sofa placement.

I can't really put into words why I like this place so much. The bedroom is particularly appealing. It has an unusual mix of colors, blue and peach. The child's orange walls are so fun.

i ADORE this house-- definitely one of my favorite tours on this site! absolutely stunning.

great house! i dont understand why you kept/put the big patch of grass directly outside your back door? doesnt that just bring in lots of mud and mess? shouldn't the grass area swap places with the brick area? just wondering because this little detail stood out to me as a flaw....

I've been visiting Apartment Therapy and never commented before. This is a lovely house tour! Particularly love the airy and light kitchen! congratulations on such great work.
@skoggins, by the way, the wallpaper is from the collection XXL by Elitis. You can check it out there. www.elitis.fr

Really one of my most favorite home tours ever. Your home is thoughtful, interesting, inviting and incorporates many classic elements, but is not at all cliche. Lovely!

Love the space! Totally what I would like to do for myself I have a house! love the open concept, the contrast between the rustic table and the glam chandelier, and the spacious kitchen!

Great job!

Elitis! How ironic!

I've had my nose stuck in Elitis wallpaper books the past couple of weeks (am planning some for our home), and never noticed this particular paper.

Love, love, love their wallpapers and wallcoverings!

i have those same dining room chairs! love em.

Yes, Yes!
What is the source for floating kitchen shelves? They are exactly what I'm looking for!!!

Pleasssee!!!!

Beautiful house but I think I would want a door to my bathroom even if it is the master. As asked before what is a coach house?

wikipedia to the rescue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_house

C'mon guys :)
respond to desperate ppl in search of the great shelves :)

Beautiful home. I think yours is the same Case Study bed we have, and I have to ask if you have any problems with the mattress sliding away from the headboard. We asked Modernica and they said they'd never heard of the problem before, which I find hard to believe.

So so sorry for the delay in getting to questions about the coachhouse! Thank you all for your too-kind comments! And thanks to Janel for making a house inhabited by a family with two boys look interesting. Yikes!
A: the "light plinth" is one side of the shower -- in other words a shower wall. Michael Goldin, our friend who did the interior layout, thought inserting the shower into the master bedroom would be "sexy." We like it! It's the only side of the shower that is frosted glass; the other two are clear. This is the master bath -- the kids' bathroom is the red one.
Thanks, Paposhka, for getting the wallpaper link up. People often think this is paint.
The wooden kitchen shelves were made out of a slab of walnut (cost about $200, I think) that I got from some guy out in the country who has a shed full of downed trees. I'll try to find him again -- the carpenter who made the walnut table also finished the shelves. We left the natural edges and they're just finished with mineral oil (as opposed to tung oil, which is very smelly and freaked me out). Obviously inspiration was Nakashima.
The orange pillows -- impulse buy from CB2! You could easily make these. Acrylic table also is CB2. Kitchen floor is Portland cement saw-cut to make it look like tiles.
Grass in front of windows -- I am proud to say I planted that lush carpet from seed (took about 3 months to really get thick) and it's even on the north side of the coachhouse. But the "real" front door is to the right and not visible in the picture -- and the brick leads up to it. We take shoes off in the house but somehow they still manage to track stuff in! Which leads me finally to the question about the sofas -- they are grey, not white! We weren't that crazy!
And yes, Duckster, the bed is Modernica and the mattress does slide away from the back.

I guess there is a rule against not loving this home. Twice I posted that it felt a bit forced and staged to me and that I like the open living room doors. Twice it was removed. Maybe third time is a charm?

hi thorndale, well, there's no denying that when apartment therapy comes over to take pictures you do clean up a lot (we took lots of toys out of the living room, especially). As for staged, though, the only thing I can think of that is truly out of the ordinary is the pile of design books on my side of the bed. I had just bought these the week before and was trying to decide which one to give to a kid I know who is interested in design. Usually my side of the bed is a jumble of books, magazines, half-empty glasses of water and headless Lego Star Wars figures.

Brenda, Thank you so much for a detailed answer on many more things that everyone is interested! Such a beautiful home you have!

What's the thing-of-many-squares seen just past the acrylic desk & chair?

PLEASE help!!! Among the many (ok...every) detail that I love about your home, I am dying to know about your front door with the long rectangular window panel in it. Is that a wooden slab door with one of the after-market window kits/door lights installed in it? We wanted to put the exact same rectangular window panel in a slab door for our front door and were told by several door manufacturers in CT that if we did that, we would HAVE to put a glass/screen door on it to protect the slab door or the veneer on the door would deteriorate and only last 2 years tops (we don't want to block such a great door with a screen/glass door). You have exactly what we want...the door, the window and sans screen/glass door on it. Am I correct that you have a slab door with a window kit on it?? Any advise you have on the best front door I have ever seen would be greatly appreciated : ) Many thanks!!!

I have a question for the owners. Do you have a TV and if so, where is it? I am struggling with the dilemma of where and how to put a large flatscreen without it being ugly.... I can't see any in the pictures and I like everything you have done.

@ Secret Agent Girl - that is an insanely heavy leaded glass window insert that we purchased from an antiques shop in chicago, like, 10 years ago. Unfortunately one pane of it was busted out when we drove our car into it while it was being stored in the garage and it has never really found a nice home. In fact it was sitting there waiting to be picked up by our friend, Carol. But i do love it. @ Shannont -- thanks for noticing the front door! It is a solid door that our contractor ordered from some door place and they put the window in but it was against his will for same reasons your CT experts say and, sadly, he was right. The door has warped a bit though it's on north side of house and protected by that brick wall to right. Probably we will have to put in a glass door soon to protect it. I guess those kinds of doors are only for southern Californians and other dry-climers. Boo hoo! @ajsGermany - we had a pretty big flat-screen TV mounted to the wall between the kitchen and living area. The floor-to-ceiling curtains were supposed to have extended over the area to cover it up but -- long story here -- that never happened. We probably spent 25 hours discussing placement of the TV and still weren't satisfied. Maybe no TV is better? =)

Thanks, again, Fontanka and others for your encouraging comments!

Stunning! This is absolutely beautiful, and looks like a wonderful and happy home.

Wow - I am in love with this house. It's practical and feels like a home, but still has tons of style. Good work!

Wow! Where do I start? Usually the homes shown here are either interesting or beautiful, but yours is both! I love your kitchen, it looks more like an office or conference room! I used to think that a totally white kitchen would be so boring. I was wrong.
I don't usually like a totally open floor plan, but your place is so beautiful, its the exception. And the lucite chair and desk under the staircase has won my heart.
I have packed my bags, when can I move in? I promise I wont take up much space.....:-P
And isn't a carriage house just what it sounds like; a FORMER carriage house, where people used to park their carriages?

Just give me your house and no one gets hurt =D....

wendym1 hahahah

brenda and family - kudos!