Category Archive

Midwest

There are some people who think offbeat homes and lifestyles don’t exist in the fly-over states. These people are delusional. Behold! Our favorite homes, stores, and Homies from the midwest.

This weirdly designed Indiana home will make you say “I can’t even…”

Usually I feature offbeat real estate listings that I’m in love with. Today is… not that. Curbed featured an article with the brilliant title of “Absolutely Everything Is Wrong With This Indiana House.” And they weren’t wrong. This is the home that WTF built…

The House of Yes: almost nothing cost more than $150

A couple years ago, I had to disassemble my adorable apartment, passing along my furniture to my students and packing everything else into my car. But before I began the process of getting rid of my worldly possessions, I thought my little flat deserved a bit of a photo shoot.

98% of what you see here is second hand. And with the exception of electronics, nothing cost more than $150!

I picked up and moved my house across town (and then I moved out)

I bought this house when I was 20 years old. I bought the home SEPARATE from the lot and I had it MOVED ACROSS TOWN. That was an experience in itself!

I worked and worked to gut and remodel it. I didn’t know what I was doing and many things were done incorrectly. When I moved in, after 2 years of working, I didn’t have trim or interior doors. My furniture was a cobbled mess of thrift store finds that I planned on SOMEDAY refinishing. And I was happy in my pile of a home!

Remembering the convent: our 8-person intentional community on the south side of Chicago

Our home in the convent brought together eight people united by the desire to work for social justice. When I lived in this house we were all fresh out of college and ready to fight poverty, the education gap, global warming, and anything else that stood in our way. Almost all of the occupants still work in urban education and live lives to limit our ecological impact.

Everyone you live with has something to teach you. I learned how to cook for eight, how to container garden, how to make homemade cleaning supplies work, and how to love urban biking.

Danielle lives in a barn built against bluffs along the Mississippi

I love so much about my barn. The original wood and stone is still visible despite all the renovation. The house is completely covered in ivy, which I thought looked really cool when I moved in this summer, but it completely blew my mind when it started turning red and gold this fall. I LOVE that it still has an open hay-loft type layout. I think that all of the old-timey features that make this place completely unique fit in with my personality (out front I still have a hitching post — A HITCHING POST — for realz) since I’ve always wished I was born in my parent’s generation. There was much better music back then.

Wait until you see what’s inside this missile silo. Hint: they have drum circle.

Ed and Diana Peden bought their very own missile silo outside Topeka, Kansas in the 1980s. At the time it was twenty years decommissioned and filled with water and sludge, but the couple couldn’t pass up the 18,000 square feet spread out on 13 floors underground.

A punk-bohemian curl-up-and-read rental in Lawrence, Kansas

Alexa, Sean, Max the cat, and an unborn child of an unknown gender live in a one-bedroom in Lawrence, Kansas, one of the Midwest’s secret bastions of art.

Ken and Dani’s loft: quirky-chic with a dash of nerd

I invaded another home: Dani’s a designer/crafter/trash-TV fan, and Ken’s a zen taxman. Come in and see what “quirky chic” is.