Rehabber’s Rehab

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The Goal:  Tear off the roof on the backroom, finish enough framing to get the plumber and electrician working, and maybe just maybe install new windows.

Well, that kind of got scrapped before the weekend even started.  We planned on finally having our permit after 10 nauseating weeks.  Alas, we achieved plan approval on Friday at 4pm after a lot of red ink and copying by Matt in the Village Hall Building department making final revisions.  However, we did not have all the necessary updated licenses and insurance for our contractors to get the big yellow card for our front window.  Thus, we scrapped the brazen idea of ripping off the back roof in broad day light without a permit.  Also our current electrical service run through where we want the gable to end, so we realized we have to wait for the electrician, who is going to put in a new service.  We’re still on fuses, and are changing the one to the garage every other week with Liz’s projects out there. But it sure would have been fun.  Stay tuned for my Wizard of Oz themed parable on the permit review process in the Emerald Oak Park.

Then our windows plan was in ruin.  Our Jeld-wen windows from Home Depot arrived on Friday morning with a possibility of next day delivery on Saturday.  The only problem was all the back room windows were missing our cottage style grills.  So two hours at Home Depot and much wrangling over the phone, half the windows were going back and the replacement windows for the bedrooms and dining room were be delivered early Saturday morning (I got a call at 6:30 AM when I’ve been working nights for the past month, argghh!).  But this window saga was happening at the same time as the rush to get our permit, so Matt had to leave me to fend through the westside CTA.  I love and hate (late buses) the CTA, but never have I smelled anything so foul as somebody who was s*itting behind me on the Cicero bus. (more…)

We were asked the question about our previous post “A Window of Opportunity”

What’s wrong with the old windows?

My answer started to get so long I decided to make it a post instead of a comment.  To answer the question: They’re pretty old, and don’t work well anymore - particularly the storm windows and screens.  On some of the windows it’s impossible to pull the storm down.  Some don’t even have a storm window, a must here in Chicago.  Especially since I don’t fancy putting up plastic sheeting every winter.  Some don’t have a screen, another must since mosquitoes are highly attracted to me!

If you look at the current “lastest pics” picture, it shows the backyard, and you can see the metal frames on the windows are pretty unattractive.  This is even more true on the front of the house.

For the sunroom, we are cutting in entirely new bigger windows in some places, and so want the rest of the house to match these so they don’t look like such an addition, but are integrated with the rest.

It’s a good question.  It made me stop and think for a minute, did we really need that?  I think sometimes you get so caught up in remodeling, it can be easy to change things without a purpose or consciously thinking about why.  But change for change’s sake is not always improvement.

I enjoyed his post about this at the blog “Keepin’ It Real“  and I agree, that if you can restore you should (hence the many man hours spent restoring the trim around the house).  Particularly in these older homes, the stuff around your house is of far better quality than you could get today even if you wanted to spend the money.  If our windows were nice wood windows (the kind of casements shown in the windows post), or old counter-weight double hungs we would definitely keep them.  I have reglazed and restored windows before with the Martin’s at Greene & Burke, so that is not the daunting task.  But ours are aluminum inside and out, were cheap to begin with, and in my opinion, not worth the effort.

Thursday

On my lunch break I took a trip to Costco to stock up for the soon arriving horde (the Martin’s, Matt, my Dad and Granddad), the main essentials being snacks (dips, crackers), bottled water (even though the tap water in Chicago is very good), and most importantly Gatorade. Gotta keep the workers happy, otherwise they are running out every five minutes to pick this stuff up. After work it was off to the paint store. Thor and I were determined not to repeat our earlier mistake of just buying paint and putting it up, so we bought about 7 samples of paint for the living room. It’s actually pretty nice that our Benjamin Moore store sells tiny samples that you can put up and try out for only about 3 dollars. I wanted blues, he wanted greens, and we wanted to paint one wall a neutral color. I figured we’d put them up and duke it out. (more…)