How does it look so smooth?

"Like a baby's butt"

The really strong concrete guys

Goofing around with cement

Meet Jose the Concrete guy

Moving the concrete arond the basement

How does the concrete get spead around?

The basement radiant heating system

Bob Grubbs gives us a colorful explanation about he system that is going to be installed

So how does the concrete get into the basement

Well here you can see the concrete getting down into the basement

Bob Grubbs - a real serious mechanical contractor

July 7th - Pouring the Floor

So the floor is finally going in.
Here is a series of videos showing the activity for putting in the basement floor

Up to date view of the rear of the house

So the wall of the addition is complete and Jose has back filled the hole. We finally have level ground again in the back.

We decided to change the plans a bit and move the entrance to the basement. The media room in the basement was going to be to small based on the original design. So we basically flipped the doorway to the other side of the beam line adding an extra 3 feet in width to the future room.

How does the tubing actually work?

Here is Steve giving us a good description of the radiant tubing along with a quick explanation of the basement ejector pit

Putting in the radiant heat in the basement

Here is a video describing how the radiant heat system gets installed in the basement before the concrete is poured.

- You get to meet Bob Grubbs and Steve Linksy, the mechanical contractors. As you can see the have a great sense of humor

What's up with all the sand?

So I was asked why is there so much sand, normally you would expect to see dirt.

It is my understanding that Lake Michigan, way back when, actually went all the way to Ashalnd Avenue, which is west of the house. As the lake receded sand was left behind.

It is actually a really good thing. Sand is a great material to build on. It compacts very quickly and very tightly, this explains why the house is so level after all these years. The sand, so long as it remains "contained", will not shift vs plain dirt which can take a long time to become fully compacted.

New Addition Walls

Here is a video of the new wall. It was just poured yesterday. This really gives you an idea of how large the addition will be.

The basement floor will be going in this week and framing starts on Monday

Digging Out the Back

So the addition is underway. Here is a video showing the addition being dug out.

Interesting Gas Lines

I added this as a piece of history for those who are interested.

The old houses were originally lit by gas. This is video showing these old lines. Pretty cool

More of the 2nd floor

2nd flr Continued

2nd Flr - Front Layout (part 1 of 3)

This is a quick video showing the layout of the 2nd floor. As Mich has finished framing all the interior wall for the existing structure

Basement before fuily dug out

This video gives you a good idea of what is going on to dig out the basement.

Right after this video was shot we had a little scare. Jose, the concrete guy, was not working this day but one of his other guys was on. Well his guy decided to try and drive the Bob Cat onto the east side of the basement (you can see it sitting on the west side of the basement). Well the problem was that the west side of the basement had all the sand pulled out BELOW the footing already so driving on the east side meant that nothing was supporting the footing from the other side. Luckily Mick and I were there and made sure the guy stopped before he did any damage. Jose ended up having to finish the rest by hand.

Back of the House

Here is a video of the rear of the property describing how the addition will be done

New Videos

So I finally have all the video uploaded.

They are about a week old, so I am sorry for the delay.

Each video has a little description.

Enjoy

Water Service

So this is a quick video showing what we currently have. Basically to make the new water tap they cut a large hole in the street/parkway. They put in this large box that the guy is standing in, this allows the workers to access the main service running in the street, which in this case is a 10" line.

New Addition

So the addtion is finally underway. Here are a couple of photo to see how things are coming along.
Will get the video up in the next day or so. Sorry has been busy.

So this is a photo standing from the ground level looking down. As you can see Jose has begun to put in the new forms for the addtion.

This is a photo of all the sand that has been pulled out. As you can see we have enough sand to create the Cuyler Ave beach...now we just need the water

Jose decided to leave the digger on top of the sand pile at the end of the day. It was a solid 4' off the ground. Lets just say it was a good thing we did not get a rain storm that night or the car that parks next to this spot would have been a lot lower to the ground

Quick Note About my Videos

Ok so I guess it is no longer possible to post video on the blog directly. So going forward there will be a link to my You Tube Account, which I guess may be easier to upload.

Have a ton of videos....check them out

Thanks
Josh

Fully Underway with the Basement Dig Out

Well the basement work has been moving full steam ahead.

Jose (the concrete guy) put in the new footings which will be used to support the main beam line in the center of the house. The new footings are 1' thick and are 4' x 4' square.
Here in the photo you can see the new columns sitting on the footings.

Each column is exactly 8' 5". The new floor will be 4" thick giving a final ceiling height under the beam of 8' 1".

All that being said only after two weeks of work things are really moving along.

Just about all the framing is completed in the existing portion of the house.

Jose is planning to grade the basement on Monday (video to come). This means he will make everything level

Once Jose is done Vladmir, the plumber, will come in to install the few underground lines for the basement bathroom and mechanical lines. As soon as he is completand gets his inspection the radiant system will be coming in.

Tom Gory will be on-site tomorrow to complete the new water service. 1.5" copper line of crisp clean Chicago water. Ummm taste the minerals.

Iouri is working on demolishing the existing porch and we have a few additional openings to close up.

The roofer will be coming next week to demo the roof (all 6 layers---Note:code only allows 3) and replace it. We will be using a newer roofing system call TPO (will have to find out what it stands for) I am happy to have it as it is considered a "green product" being that it is non petroleum based. Up until recently most of the typical residential roofing products were all petroleum based which as BP can tell you in not what you want these days. We have a TPO roof on one of our commercial buildings and it has held up very nice over the years. It should work especially well in this application because, although the roof is flat, it still has a decent pitch, which means no drainage issues. Standing water is what shortens the life of a flat roof.

I get to drive out to Aurora on Tuesday to get the sky lights. They have to be framed out and on site while the roofers are doing there thing.

AND THE BIG NEWS.......we have decided to enlarge the back of the house by an additional 2' We decided that the kitchen was just no large enough for what we wanted. So the entire back of the house just got bigger. In the end it will make virtually no difference in cost but will be a huge difference in space. We are very excited.

So far the project has been moving very nicely. It has been great to work with Mick. He has really allowed me to use my imagination for designing the space the way we ultimately want it look.
I will upload a video in the next day or so of the framed layouts. The house is looking fantastic.

Below are several videos of Jose driving the Bob Cat and basically digging up any semblance of what was left of a back yard.




I suppose I could try and convince Steph to leave the ramp and we could have a drive in basement for my giant car collection :) Although I have a feeling she actually wants to finish the basement at some point.


It ended up being a good thing that the last column was never put up. Later that day one Jose's guys ran over it and broke it, so needless to say he gets to make a new one.

Busy Week So Far

Well it is only Thursday morning and it has been a very busy week.

There are multiple crews on site doing a lot of stuff.

We have:
The Carpenter. They are doing:
- All framing in the existing portion of the house
- Adding in sub- flooring where needed
- Assisting the other trades to get things done.
All around the carpenters keep the job moving, and moving fast they are. According to Mick they are only moving at 3/4 speed, your truly has been a bit delayed in getting specific directions on certain items. I am trying though. I can only imagine what full speed looks like. They have been a great job.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to relive my childhood detention days, you know "I will not shoot spit balls" 100 times. Mick needed a door schedule completed and proceeded to stand over me until I completed the thing (it was 6:30 pm when we left). Mick, thank you for generating that trip down memory lane.
I promise to deliver things on time....
I promise to deliver things on time....
I promise to deliver things on time.... (you get the idea)

The plumbers, Vladmir and Ray, have shown up and are moving ahead. They will install all the vent pipes first and then come back and do the copper water lines. It is done this way for two reasons
1) Don't want copper on the job until the house is closed up (it will just get stolen)
2) The vent lines are the hardest part to fit in the walls, so they always go first

Jose, the concrete guy, is back and this time he brought a Bob Cat. We currently have a drive in basement. He had to make a ramp down to the basement to dig it out. Video to come

Iouri, the mason, is working away openings and closing windows. The front porch will commence today.

Needless to say, it is busy.

Two changes that we will be making.

1) We decided to add sky lights off Mick's suggestion.
Where you ask?
- Top of the staircase
- Master bath
- Kid's bath
They should add some really nice light ot the second floor

2) We are going to enlarge the kitchen by 6". May not seem like a lot, but every inch count.

All is all, we are moving nicely. The new windows are ready for delivery so as soon as the heavy trades are done the should be here.

Check back tomorrow. Will try and upload videos and maybe Mick will have a new lesson :)

Steel Coming Up

We are going to be opening up the west side of the 2nd floor in order to expand the new bedroom into the new addition. In order to keep the building stable a steel beam has to be put in place to support the roof and ensure that the exterior walls remain plumb.

The steel beam that has to be placed is approximately 14' long and weighs (according to Mick, the steel contractor) about 900 lbs.

The mason pocketed the brick to accommodate the beam. It was raised, by hand, and put into place by the Masons and Steel Contractors. Once the beam was put in the mason was able to open up the rest of the wall to create the new opening

This photo looking out of the pocket that was created to accept the new beam.

This photo is looking at the rear of building. You can see Iouri (he is the head Mason) up on the scaffolding making the final cuts to accept the beam












Here is a video of the guys bringing the beam up. Surprisingly it did not take that long to do. About 20 minutes and it was up. They basically brought the beam up one side at a time.



Here is the video of the beam up and being prepped to go into the building. One small blunder the beam was actually supposed to go up 180 degrees opposite of how it was hauled up. So the mason had to removed a little more brick from the left side of the opening. Oops :)



Here is the final result. What do you think, should we just leave it this way?
The opening has a tarp in place to close it up and protect against the elements. The tarp will remain in place until the addition has been completed.

Concrete Work

The order of business is to commence work on the basement footings and columns. We are going to be lowering the floor in the basement and need an exact height of the new ceiling so that the steel contractor (Mick Wells) can fabricate the new columns.

Jose Tinoco (he is Mexican/Japanese..ok just kidding...he is just mexican, I think) So his guys got to work breaking up the floor around the existing steel columns.

They dug holes around all 4 posts to determine the height of the new ceiling as well as the height needed for the new columns that would be going in.

Here are the numbers:
     Current Height
       height under the beam line - 7'
       height outside the beam line - 7' 6"

    New height
       under the beam line - 8' 1"
       outside of the beam line - 8' 7"

So all in all not bad considering that 8' is the "standard" height of most spaces.

Here are so photos of the work;

The guys spray water all over the floor to keep the dust down.
One thing that blew me away -- these guys were using a jack hammer for almost 3 hours with no ear protection. Lord only knows how they can hear anything

See the big hole. This is the new footing that has to be added. The plans call for a new beam and post to be placed to support the staircase.

Finally Underway

Well after 1 month of waiting the permit has arrived. The delay was due to the City deciding that they wanted a structural review of the plans - known as a Peer Review. This was a bit unexpected given that this is a residential project and then structural changes were minor at best.

What is a Peer Review you ask? Well the plans have to be reviewed by a Structural Engineer who is "certified" in the City of Chicago. Getting a Structural Engineer to do a full written review at the last minute is not so easy. So after about 1.5 weeks and $1000 later we get a stamped piece of paper saying that the drawings are sufficient. So Jim, the architect, went back down town to drop everything back off with the building department. We were given the impression that this would be sufficient and the permit would be issued...ahh the beauty of the City of Chicago. Well people have to justify their jobs so of course the Peer Review had to be reviewed by the City structural department. "Only a few days were told". Well after a week I began to lose my patience so I personally went down there to try and collect the plans.

After schmoozing with the Permit Reviewer for 45 minutes (that is not an exaggeration either) he decides to go and check on the status of plans. Can you guess...they were not approved. The structural reviewer decided that the Peer Review was not complete and required a letter stating the changes he wanted the architect to make. Note: there were no actual changes to the drawings the person only needed to justify their job.

The changes required going back to the Engineer and having him write a letter and then basically place his stamp all over everything. The City Structural reviewer may have just written CYA or better yet CMA (cover my ass) all over the thing.

So after three days we were able to get the drawings and peer review back to the City. Of course they had to review everything all over again. The Friday before Labor Day arrived and I could not take it any more. I went and camped myself in front of the Permit Reviewer. He eventually acknowledged me and said that in fact the permit was ready. I paid as fast as I could and then proceeded to RUN out of the building department lest they think of some other reason to delay the process.

I called all the contractors - think of trying to mobilize all the armed forces at once. The Tuesday after Labor Day we officially got under way.

Dealing with a contracor BEFORE the job starts.

Before I explain what the status of the house project is I would like to relay an experience that I had with choosing a contractor. Even with 11 years of experience you can still learn something new.

When I bid the job I spoke with no less than 7 HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) contractors all recommended from various sources. The mechanical portion of the job is by far the most expensive part of this project. We are doing two separate central A/C systems with a furnace for back-up heat. The systems are split to provide maximum comfort during the summer with the most efficient use of a ducted system. For heat there is a separate radiant system for heating the entire house. This has multiple zones to adjust the heat in all the part of the house, vs just a central thermostat. Lets just say that I have put a lot of thought into the mechanical systems of my house.

I settled on a contractor, Dave, (won't use his full name here) who came "highly recommended" and whose price was about $15K or so less than everyone else. I thought the whole thing was to good to be true. I met with him a second time to review his quote and make sure he was not missing anything. Dave admitted he missed one thing, but it was not a major item and his price was still really good. I even went to see a customer who could not stop raving about Dave, but in the back of my mind there was still something not right. I firmly believe that you have to trust your gut, especially when dealing with people who you are paying for work. Side note here, there was another contractor whom I have worked with for several years, Bob Grubbs. Bob is as honest as can be, knows his stuff AND will admit if he doesn't know something (i love this quality in a person) Bob was the guy I wanted to give the job to. Bob and I have such a good relationship that he admitted he was so busy he could not give this job the attention it deserved and suggested I hire an alternate contractor. Now that is an a good contractor.

So Dave and I got everything settled, drew up a contract and I gave the him a $3K deposit. Now this is not what I normally do (nor do I recommend doing this) but at the time there was a State of IL rebate that I was hoping to get so I paid him the deposit so we could get the ball rolling on the paper work. Well everything seemed to be good until we began to move forward with the actual permit process. Dave said he did "plenty of work in the City of Chicago", only when asked where and with whom he seemed to get a little shaky. When it came time to go for the permit he could not seem to produce any of the required documents, even though he had said on multiple occasions he had done plenty of permitted work in the City.

About 2 weeks after I signed the contract with Dave guy, and I started to feel a bit nervous about working with this guy. By pure coincidence Bob calls and says "hey did you ever give the job away, 'cause I can do it if you still want". Well I told him of the situation and he said for me to call him if things changed or just wanted an opinion on the work.

Well after about 1 week of going back and forth with Dave and loosing a lot of sleep I came to a realization. You would not go to a heart surgeon that you were not totally comfortable with to do your surgery, well in this case I was spending almost the same amount. I called up Dave and told him this was not going to work. He is a good guy and truly understood my concerns. We did come to am amicable solution. Rather than take back the deposit Dave agreed to do a small job for me at one of my properties. Hopefully it will go smoothly and I will end up with another contractor to use in the future. I could not bring myself to just take back the deposit it felt better to at least have him earn the money instead, and I needed the work done anyway.

The moral of the story is just because a guy is cheap and comes "highly recommended" doesn't mean you should hire him. Do your homework but most importantly trust your instinct. You are paying this person hard earned money, make sure it counts. The other thing, get the kinks out before the job starts. If not it will only cost you more later.

Oh, the final situation is that I am working with Bob, he of course had all the right paper work and I am really excited to be working with him. I think this is going to be a great job for both of us.

Some New Videos

So I finally had a chance to upload some videos.

This is a video to get a good idea of what the interior of the house looks like before any work started. We are keeping all the doors and molding for re-use. They are in excellent condition as you can see.



Here is a video of the rear of the house before the porch came down. The new addition should be about the same size as the porch.



Here is a video that was taken this morning. This gives you a good idea of the future layout. With all the walls gone the space does not seem do big....weird. Check out the wood, real 2x4's. They don't make wood like this anymore.

How things are looking

So, at the end of the day today the entire first floor was totally demoed (except for the front living room). It is really cool to see how the 1st floor will look. Here are some photos taken today before the floor was cleaned up.

That's Alberto, he does not like to have his photo taken. You will see him eventually




So here is all the wood lathe that was removed. This was the wood that covered the wall studs. The plaster was slathered against the lathe to form the wall. Clearly there was a lot of it.



This is an image looking towards the rear of the house. I am techincally standing at the front door looking back.



It has been a bit of a mystery why the house is so straight. There is steel post and beams in the basement which for sure make a difference, but we also found steel beam up in the ceiling where the bumps outs are. This make a big deal in the amount of the load that the joists have to carry. Just proves that the house is built like a rock. Makes me feel that much better about this place.



The ceiling of the basement was taken down as well, no real surprises. Found a little bit of asbestos, no real surprise there. Other than that things seem to be going according to plan.

Well will get you some good photos tomorrow and will have a video of the first floor

Dumpster Pick up after Rain storm

So last night we had a ton of rain. I woke up at 4 am and could not stop thinking about what would happen to the yard this morning when the dumpster was picked up. The other issue was that there is no gutter on the building. We showed today to find a nice puddle in the first floor. It was not a major concern given that most of the rear wall will be opened up with the addition.


So, I took a video of the dumpster being removed this morning. (it is not very good) The driver was excellent, but we ended up with a hole the size of a fishing pond. The reason why the video cuts short is that the guys was about was about to take the entire back year with him.



Here is a second video after the new dumpster was dropped. Needless to say we were much better about supporting the thing. Alberto (he is the demo guy) wants everyone to know that supporting the dumpster was his idea :)
We will need about 2 more dumpsters before all the demo is done. See the boards, the driver spend about 10 minutes lining the thing up to rest perfectly on the boards, didn't even have to tip him extra for this service.




For anyone who needs a dumpster we use Ravenswood Disposal Service. There are always nice and arrive on time. Not the cheapest but fair. I called about 5 places, so I think it is a good deal. Oh this is a 30 yard dumpster just so you know what you are looking at.

I admit these video kind of stink. Sorry about that I will do my best to work on my camera work.

Demo Underway

So, we started demo on Tuesday and the guys are really moving. I have to say that I am not sure what I feel more of, excitement or nervous. I guess it depends on the day.

Here are a few photos.

The first one is the rear of the house taken on Tuesday evening. The big deal is that the roof has been taken off, which is the hardest part. Once the roof comes down the rest is easy.



The rear porch was in been in bad shape the day we purchased the house, and just got worse and worse over the last year. Let's just say the by the time the Tenants moved out at the end of April the big bad wolf would have had a field day here.

Here is a photo of the basement. There were a bunch of wood walls separating the basement, now we have a nice big open room. The concrete block wall is coming out too. No one could figure out what the block wall was for as it seems to serves no structural purpose. The best we could come up with was that it may have been used for cold storage during the summer. Any other idea?? When we dig up the basement lets hope there is no dead body :)

See the radiators in the corner? These must have been part of the original heating system for the house. The building was most likely heated by a gravity system. This means that water circulated through large pipes using convection to move the water vs today where we use pumps. As you can imagine the pumps are way more efficient.




So this is what the rear of the building looked like at the end of the day on Wed. Pretty fast demo. The dumpsters are filling up quick.



This last photo was taken on Wed. This is Marlon, one of the demo guys. This is our future dining room. MMMMM....I can smell the good food in here already. We did not find anything to exciting in the walls, just the old hat hanging on the windows. Everyone has agreed that if the demo crew just disappears one day we know they found gold :)

So what does the house look like and some details

I am sure you want to actually see the house. Here are a few photos (I need to get some newer versions)

The first is the front of the house. This is a typical Chicago Brick 2-flat. See the bump outs on the side and front, these are all over the city.

The lot is 35' wide, which is considered an extra wide lot for the City. We will end up with a very nice front yard and cute little back yard behind the building. The lot is wide enough for us to have a full two car garage with an additional 8' parking pad in the rear (so there is always a spot when you come to visit)

The second photo is an example of the quality of the existing wood work. We have coolest carpenter for the job. (NOTE: I am saying this now, i hope to g-d I still love him when the job is done. Mick if you read this, I mean this in the best way :) Anyway, he will be removing the built-in and turning it into a free standing piece for our dining room. I cannot wait to see it when it is done.

We are hoping to reuse as much of the existing wood work as possible. Nothing has been painted so all the molding, trim and doors are in their original condition. We searched for 8 months to find the perfect house to rehab.

Here Are the layouts for the house.

So we hope the house will actually look like this.
The basement is a rough design, we anticipate that it will change, as we are not going to finish it out before we move in.
The upper floors should look pretty much like what you see here.

So what you are looking at is the (from top to bottom):

Basement layout
2nd floor layout
1st floor layout

THANKS FOR CHECKING IN

Hey everybody,

Thanks for checking this out. We are really excited to get the project underway. I hope you will check in often to see what is going on with the house. Feel free to put in your thoughts.

We look forward to having everyone over when it is done. If you want to stop by at any time while things are underway do not hesitate to ask.

By the way, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in checking out what is happening

Cheers

Josh

The Idea behind the project

Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to take an old house and bring it back to it's former glory along with some great updates too.
When Stephanie and I (that's my wife for anyone who does not know) decided that Chicago would be the permanent home for our family, I knew my dream was on its way to coming true. Stephanie, after so many years took and leap of faith and entrusted me to put together our future home.
This is record of the project from start to finish with as many details as I can muster. I welcome comments and thoughts on all the postings.