Freehand has a lot going for it: great location on East Ohio in downtown Chicago, cool funky vibe, friendly and helpful desk staff, and an amazing food service menu for all meals from a place called Butler that can be delivered straight to the lobby. (You just order online or phone them and tell them when you want it delivered— I ordered the next day’s breakfast the night before, and the delivery person arrived to the lobby and phoned me at the time I requested. (Amazing “impossible breakfast sandwich” and oatmeal, by the way!)
A few things that would be better or help this property go from pretty good up to excellent:
Make sure that at least one light in the room can go up to full volume. All of the lights in my room maxed out at a pretty dim level. With no options to get brighter. That was frustrating when I was trying to read or just to get full light.
The window (in the room I stayed in) was pretty old. It did not keep out the cold of the season, and street sounds (I was on the 12th floor) seemed to “come right in”.
The heater in my room did not seem to work, and I was too tired to get it resolved or to even ask for a blanket.
The room I stayed in had a faint smell of cigarettes in the bedding. This, unfortunately, I didn’t smell until I got, well, into bed to go to sleep. Maybe find a way to have 100% nonsmoking rooms: meaning people who smoke outside stay in only certain rooms. Maybe lower floors closer to getting to the outside?
Lobby area had a funny bathroom smell, maybe something was being worked on in the plumbing?
Consider taking up the rugs in all the rooms and doing something different with the floors – – maybe anchored area rugs to cut down on flooring absorbing odor?
Overall, freehand was a really cool place to stay. Even with the comments above, the value location and atmosphere was something I would definitely try again!