From the listing, I expected a small but fully furnished room in a beautifully restored, old house with impressive kitchen and bathroom facilities. The room fully met these expectations. My son moved to Chicago to marry last year, and my first grandchild was born earlier this year. I needed a comfortable, reasonably priced place to live and work for a few weeks while visiting family, and Ryan's house met all of my needs. He and Josh are exemplary hosts, and the house attracts friendly, interesting guests. I felt at home and made friends.

The west side of Chicago has a reputation for urban blight, but the neighborhood around Garfield Park is recovering. The park's conservatory, a short walk from the house, is a beautiful oasis attracting visitors from around the city. The Kedzie St. train station, a short walk in the other direction, permits easy access to the city center, and if you arrive with a car, parking on the street outside the house is always plentiful.

The bunk bed in the Vintage Airline room is not for everyone, but it looked like fun to me, and I wasn't disappointed. I work online as a software developer and expected to work on the sofa with my lapdesk, as I do at home, but the desk under the bed won me over, providing lots of room to spread out and enabling me convenient access to three computers. The wifi in the house was fast and reliable.

I spent three weeks in the room in February. Because of its location, the room is cooler than the rest of the house, even cooler than the rest of the third floor outside of the room. The house is warm in the morning, when the radiators heat up, but by midday, the room was cooler, though comfortable with a sweater, so I sometimes sat in the living room downstairs to work.

The house has two very friendly dogs that bark when someone arrives in the house, and the sound of the train is discernible a few times times an hour, but the house is typically quiet. The renovation is still underway, but for fans of "This Old House", the ongoing transformation is an attraction. The place is a bargain at this point, and I won't hesitate to visit again.