Every vote counts! The backbone of a democracy is the duty of all it’s citizens to vote. Get prepared to find your polling place. In Evanston, you can contact the City of Evanston, to determine your voting location. Make sure to show up on November 4th 2008 or earlier for absentee voting.

The time has come again for the annual Green Living Festival. The event is being held on Saturday, October 4th at the Evanston Ecology Center, located at 2024 McCormick Blvd. The event hours will be from 9:00am-4:00pm.

The festival will focus on ways the public can contribute to reducing carbon emissions and living cleaner lifestyles. There will be presentations, demonstrations, tours of a mini-farm at Twiggs Park and activities to engage the entire family. The event is sponsored by local green-businesses and organizations, which will introduce products and ideas to live in an environmentally sustainable way.

The festival is being held as a free event and everyone is welcome to attend.  For more information call 847.448.8256.

As Summer is officially ending, it’s a fantastic time to get a new landscape designed and built. Trees, shrubs and perennials all do very well with being planted this time of year. The typical rainfall and cooler temperatures keep plants from getting stressed. There’s also plenty of blooms and foliage colour to be enjoyed in the Autumn months. Many plants continue to provide colour until around the first snowfall. Although, a thoughtfully designed landscape will give plenty of visual interest in Winter.

If you plan to build extensive terracing, decks and hardscaping, many contractors prefer to work on these projects during cooler months. Having a comfortable contractor, means you’ll likely get a carefully built finished product. Remember to hire a professional landscape designer or architect to design the landscape. Don’t rely on a contractor to give you professional results without a design. It’s always nice to see a properly designed plan in three dimensions, so ask your designer to arrange a scale model. This allows you to visually walk through a landscape before it’s built. For more information about landscape design, visit the Chicago Botanic Garden website.

For more information: Hartong International Design

Would you like to learn a bit more about the market conditions in Evanston? Looking for smart home renovation advice or need the financing to refurbish a home? Join us for a brief presentation and interactive discussion about North Shore housing trends. We will be covering the basics of renovation lending, smart renovation/design trends and overall market conditions on the North Shore. 

We will be holding two presentations during the month of September 2008. Join us on 9/10/08 from 6pm-7pm or 9/20/08 from 1pm-2pm at Rubloff North Shore, 1620 Sherman Avenue, Suite A, Evanston, Illinois. No need to make a reservation for our complimentary presentation. For more details, call 1 847 512 2781.

Jason Hartong, QSC Realtor, Rubloff North Shore

Corinne Guerra, Home Mortgage Consultant, RWF Mortgage, LLC

Having already run a successful fine Italian restaurant, the owners of Campagnola opened a complimentary venture last Spring.  The Union Pizzeria has an ambience reminiscent of a contemporary Milan eatery and a festive crowd at almost any hour of the evening. The high vaulted ceilings and creative lighting add to the overall appeal and visual enjoyment. A huge central bar with seating for 25, is a perfect place to sample the beer offerings from Belgian and German microbreweries. There is also a surprisingly large variety of wine choice.

I’ve eaten at Union many times and it’s never a dull scene.  The menu is fairly simple, with a selection of well made pizza, salads and casual Italian cuisine. I’d recommend the entire menu, considering the kitchen staff do their job well.  It’s not fancy dining but done with fresh ingredients and presented elegantly.  The staff are all very friendly and add to the overall comfortable setting.  

Union Pizzeria is located at 1245 Chicago Avenue in Evanston.  Nearby, is the Dempster Street EL station and several bus links.  Parking is usually pretty challenging. Often, a few runs around the block will land you a parking space with luck.  I recommend calling in a reservation, during peak weekend hours.  Union Pizzeria can be reached by tel: 1 847 475 2400 or visit www.unionpizza.com

While Summer might be ending soon, The Chicago Botanic Garden welcomes visitors all year long. The amazing variety of individual gardens continually change and always entice the senses with a new experience.

The park displays many garden styles and designs by internationally recognized garden designers.  John Brookes, one of my favourite designers, built an authentic English Walled Garden, that gives the viewer a taste of Europe’s historic gardens. The Japanese Garden has the subtle formality expected in such a garden, offering a place to reflect and relax. There are so many types of environments to explore, all with unique designs and character.  

I’d recommend an outing to the gardens over the holiday weekend. There is a fantastic variety of colour and foliage to see during late Summer. The park offers plenty to do and see for the entire family. For hours and a full list of upcoming events, visit the Chicago Botanic Garden’s website. Click here for more details.

Whole Foods will be hosting the FlavorFest, which will include music, food and cooking demonstrations. There will be plenty to do for the entire family. Old school bands like the English Beat and the Smithereens will be playing along with several local acts. It should be a perfect weekend and worth getting down to the city for the complimentary party at Trebes Park near Webster and Racine.

The festivities will be held on August 23rd & 24th, 2008. The hours will be 11am-9pm on Saturday and 11am -8pm on Sunday. For more details, Click here.

The importance of landscape garden design has become accepted in America, as property owners look to expand usable living space.  The term “outdoor room” has been floating around for years but as the public becomes more aware about creating useful green space, the implementation of sophisticated gardens has expanded. No longer is a homeowner limited to the traditional deck and lawn in their garden. Adding additional terraces and three season rooms have become a logical way to extend square footage to a home.

Sherry Thomas of North Shore Magazine recently wrote, an excellent article about the European outdoor room philosophy, which is becoming rediscovered on the North Shore. 

From European-style swimming pools to sultry outdoor living rooms, North Shore residents are finding more ways than ever to turn their homes inside out. 

When Susan Forney first saw her sprawling estate home in Northfield, she fell in love with its Old World elegance and history.

“I’m the third owner,” she says of her 1923 property. “It was built by a gentleman who, around the turn of the century, designed a seal that was used for Ford motor cars.” As the man made his fortune, he and his wife (a transplanted Southern belle) moved into a mansion in Chicago and built the Georgian in the country, on a 22-acre spread with ample room for horses and entertaining, as a place to escape the oppressive city heat.  

Click here to read the full article.

To learn more about landscape design, visit Hartong International.

Please join us for a brief overview of current real estate market conditions in Evanston, Illinois. Corinne Guerra of Rubloff Wells Fargo Mortgage, will be speaking about available financing and renovation lending. Jason Hartong of Rubloff, will talk about about ideal homes for renovation and what type of projects a homeowner should focus on.

Please call Rubloff North Shore for details, 1 847 512 2700.  The free seminar will be held at Rubloff North Shore, 1620 Sherman Ave., Evanston, Illinois. August 9th 2008, from 11-12pm.  No RSVP required. 

Regardless of all the lending and foreclosure panic we hear in the news, real estate is still changing hands. Buying a home has become more about location and appearance than ever. A home must be a completely finished property with the perfect combination of amenities and finishes or either a real bargain fixer upper to sell. With high fuel prices, being close to an urban center or a university, will make a property more desirable. In the burbs, it’s important to be close to a rail network, with a short commute time. Look for suburbs with a sense of community and a traditional town center.  Sprawl and unincorporated areas have become far less attractive in a shrinking economy.    

I find most of my real estate clients are looking for, a vintage home that has been completely rebuilt or a unique contemporary house. Character properties are much more desirable than cookie-cutter properties. As a buyer, it’s important to look for a property with a good balance of detail and modern function. Look for a property with rooms that properly serve their intended use. Vintage properties that have been modernized properly will appear to be seamless in combining the old and new. A home with details like, real wood flooring, high-end appliances, copper gutters and cedar shake roofing will make a property show well, last longer and appeal to a larger number of buyers in the future. 

A huge but often overlooked area is, landscaping.  I see it all the time, a house that has been completely refurbished and the contractor skimps on the trees and shrubs. There’s nothing worse than seeing a home with lawn going right up to the foundation or fast food restaurant styled plantings. Landscape can make or break the total appearance of a property. Proper landscaping isn’t cheap and should be taken seriously. Make sure to hire a landscape designer with a formal education to plan and supervise the project. The results will be far more successful than letting a landscape contractor just wing it. A landscape constructed properly will include a balance of hardscaping that fits the architectural style, along with perennial plants, shrubs and trees to finish the space. The idea is to create outdoor rooms, which add more living space to a home. Expect to pay close to 10% of the real estate’s market value on the landscape.  By doing it right, you will be adding a great deal of value to the property. 

There are many ways to improve the overall appearance of a home to suit different budgets. Always remember quality over quantity. External factors can’t always be controlled but the temptation to buy a newer or larger home further away from civilization, isn’t the smartest choice in a tough real estate market. Make sure to buy for location and then go for quality and uniqueness.