Wilmette Shell

There's a company in the North Shore that specializes in upscale estate sales. While the sales are always in nice homes, time and again they also turn out to be strangely empty.

A copper chafing dish and a single wooden shoe made up the majority of items for sale here in the kitchen.

No dishes. No table linens. No pots and pans. Just a bottle of Joy, a beige soap dispenser and what looks to be someone's half-consumed iced coffee left behind on the sink.

An upstairs bedroom, which looks like something the pilgrims might have slept in.

Especially because of this.

Another bedroom. They've obviously had trouble selling that little sofa-sleeper without a bottom cushion.

This study -- also largely empty -- demonstrates the sort of thing that's revealed when things are stripped to the walls.

This looks like a great place to get some work done. Cozy and warm, with plenty of bookshelves.

But pay extra attention to the center of the picture, just to the right of that middle shelf. Those aren't shadows, but places where books once sat, unmoved.

Whether it was discolored from years of wear or cigarette smoke, or both, is hard to say.

Another wall. All that's left are the ghosts of whatever hung on it all that time.