Circular but true: when you buy a home it’s yours. There’s no landlord to blame for the Disney-theme flocked wallpaper (Pluto’s got fur!) or the conversation pit upholstered in Mayfair plaid leather. It’s your taste, energy, skill, and cold hard cash that determine what goes in, and on, your house. Essentially, it’s you. The people profiled here have taken that fact to heart. An architect and contractor have turned a modest bungalow into a lab for their professional creativity. Another couple has turned a two-flat into an ongoing tutorial for fellow DIY remodelers. The plastic surgeon has found a mission in restoring a disfigured mansion. The spiritual granddaddies of them all, Edgar Miller and Sol Kogen, created a fantasia that was still evolving more than half a century after they started. And all of them would probably empathize with artist Brian Bonebrake, who calls his duplex apartment “a giant piece of installation art that’s always in progress.”

We’re on the lookout for other special spaces, so if you know someone who’s done something cool to their house—or condo or loft or garden or garage—please let us know at nest@chicagoreader.com. Plus: see last year's Nest Issue.

The Artist: Brian Bonebrake By Lisa Skolnik	The Pros: Alex Dunham & Eve Fineman By Lisa Skolnik
The Restorer: David Teplica By Tony Adler	The Bloggers: Steve & Jocelyn Gerard By Laura Molzahn
The Granddaddies: Sol Kogen & Edgar Miller By Dennis Rodkin

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