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