This past weekend, Mary, the kids, and I travelled to Chicago’s south suburbs to visit family and mourn the passing of my grandfather, Ed Leitelt.

He passed away early Friday morning, March 10, 2006.

Thank you, Grandpa, for your love, good example, and good times. We will miss you.

Last summer and fall, we had a conversation with our neighbors Paul Seguin and Ann Friedmann. The previous owner of their home had put up an unattractive fence on the property line that neither they nor us liked. There were other issues related to the property line: grade change and its impact on paving their driveway.

So we discussed a range of possibilities. Paul contacted Tom Nelson of Woods’ End Rescue. And Tom came up with the idea of a retaining wall that looked more like a natural feature than a stacked stone wall. We liked the idea, even though it would require putting a bunch of stone well into our property.

Paul and Tom hand-picked the limestone from a local quarry, and Paul hauled it with his boom truck. The first “cornerstone” was huge, and the rest followed closely behind. Many of the neigbors worried that the scale was going to overpower the neighborhood, but Paul and I saw Tom’s vision and new it would work out just fine. Construction took a few weeks, but the wait was well worth it.

In the end, collaboration between neighbors resulted in a design solution that was better than either of us could have mustered on our own. The wall looks great, accomodates ample plantings, incorporates a firepit in the back yards, levels our backyourd, and will allow Paul and Ann ample width to pave their driveway if they desire.

The photos are from last year, but with the snow gone now, it won’t be long before we can post new photos with greenery in place.

Thanks, Paul, Ann, and Tom, for a good collaboration and a beautiful improvement to the neighborhood!

This spring will offer the first opportunity to plant the beds surrounding a recent sun porch addition in Northfield.

The porch addition replaces an existing deck, which our client found unusable because of the strong south sun, stiff winds, and the ubiquitous mosquito. The most significant design challenge was to create a great space that fit the lines of the existing home, while handling a unique rainwater management problem. The inside corner of the deck was the location of a downspout, and that inside corner was to become the inside corner of the new sun porch.

Phil Olson of Northfield Construction saw the challenge and recommended that the client get in touch with us. (Thank you, Phil!)

After listening to the client’s design ideas and input, we developed a roof form that complements the home while solving the water problem. This involved creating the computer model of the existing home, modeling the proposed addition, and studies of various window configurations. All the way, the client liked being able to see in three dimensions the impact of a change. In parallel, Mary worked with interior colors and Kathleen Sakry, a decorative painter (952-892-3345), to fine tune the interior design of the whole house.

Then, after we completed detailed drawings for the project, we worked with Phil and Northfield Construction to manage project costs in conjuction with design ideas. They did a great job helping us understand the cost and construction implications of various choices and kept the project within reach. They also did a nice job translating the design into reality.

When the project was mostly constructed, Doug Grove of Grove Landscaping came in to handle the retaining walls, exterior stairs and planters, which look great.

We look forward to seeing the first blooms of spring to add icing to this successful collaboration!

Click here to see more images of this project.

Have you ever been in a conference or at a performance when someone’s cell phone rang, even after the emcee asked for all phones to be turned off? I have, and it is nothing short of annoying. But there is hope!

NaturalNano has developed a paint product that can solve the problem.

In a combination of a specially formulated paint and wireless technology, they can control which radio frequencies are available and which are blocked and which are available. At intermission, access can be allowed for cell phones, then it can be “switched off”.

It sounds like they can allow WiFi but block cell phones as they choose.

At last, a solution to the new digital etiquette problem.

Thanks, Paul.