Its been very busy this past month so pardon the dated posts. After mostly passing all of our inspections, we were able to proceed with the insulation. Oak Park is very thorough in its insulating requiring a separate insulation inspection and the highest standards of insulation protection. Although demanding, its good for the heating bills and conserving energy. We have been scraping by with large pieces of plastic sheeting to help keep the heat in and cold out, but this is certainly not ideal.

So we spent the enitre weekend of December 7th and 8th insulating. We got tremendous help on Saturday from Matt’s friends Samati and Maria. They were machines with plenty of experience remodeling their own place. We hope that they will make a guest post with their own (mis)adventures in rehabbing. As they worked on insulating the kitchen, Matt and I installed two new windows in the backroom adding a lot more light.

On Sunday a new crew of friends came over with Matt’s current roommates Brennan and Kim and Matt’s old college roommate Wade. Our progress was significant leaving just a bit of ceiling insulation in the backroom and the attic left to do. The big project of the day was installing the new 8ft long casement and picture window in the backroom. The window was massive requiring the straining of three grown men to lift it and five people to fenagle it into place, but it payed off big time. Later I found out that Kim had been promised that she wouldn’t be working outside and dressed accordingly. While technically true, when you take out an 8×4.5ft window the opening left behind leaves you pretty much exposed to all the elements.

We also had the pleasure of taking down the shanty. It is no more. The back of the house looks ten times better, or at least it will once we get all of the trash out of the yard.

Later in the week, Matt and Allison came out to help finish up the insulation in the attic during the passing of Frank Jr. The help was so greatly appreciated as the inspection was to happen the next day and Liz and I were not in any condition to work.

For the past three months we had the pleasure of having Frank stay in Oak Park with Liz’s Mom as Frank had become a hurricane Ike refugee. On the morning of Thursday Dec. 12 Frank passed in his sleep succumbing to a month long battle against injuries and complications arising from a fall suffered in November. He is greatly missed.

First step was taping off the window edges, during which I have perfected my taping technique to a perfect art.  We are talking edges that meet perfectly in the corner with no gaps in-between.  This is opposed to my usual modus operandi of ripping of hundreds of tiny bits off to have the tape meet and overlap exactly in the corners, and ending up with messy pieces that fall off and are stuck everywhere.  The trick, I found, is to lay the tape  along the edge and up to the corner.  Then placing a putty knife in the corner cutting it into an oblique angle, you can rip the tape along the edge.  You should rip from the corner inward.

The weather is unseasonably warm right now, so we knew this was a project we needed to get done as soon as possible.  We removed the windows from the frames, and stained them to match all of the trim.  It was a bit of a rush job since the windows needed to be put back in before we went to bed, so the stain didn’t get to set as long as it should before we applied the polyurethane, but it worked out.

Taking the tape off, we started out using cotton rounds and alcohol to remove the left behind tape gunk, but then I switched to nail polish remover (acetone), which worked quicker with a lot less elbow grease.

There was one mishap taking one of the double hungs out and the catch on the tension cord that lets the window go up and down was broken.  No word yet on if there is a warranty or replacement part.  We are completely bummed because they are brand new and it is the one in our bedroom.

Either way they are looking really great and add a lot of character to the house.

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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.

So, we changed up our game plan with little trace of disappointment and in the end got everything we needed done.  We decided to focus on the framing, knowing that the electrician would have a little that he couldn’t do in the roof of the back room, which only consisted of two lights and a fan, because the existing roof was still in place.  We started by cleaning up the masonary well that once separated the backroom and kitchen.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t such a clean job.  There was dust everywhere, especially on the cat.

We started demo-ing the old kitchen and pantry window so that we could frame in the wall.  Then we started to frame in the new kitchen window.   This made us curious on how we were going to finish out the other windows, like how deep the windows would be set on the sill.  So naturally, we moved to set one of the replacement windows in the dining room. 

Tackling any new job always requires some time, you got to find the right tools, figure out installation directions, and change up your mind set.  But the first window was a success and Matt, Dad and I were drunk on thrill of completion, so we decided that we would finish the other two dining room windows in the set. Sure enough we couldn’t be stopped and before you knew it we had two holes in the kitchen, brand new windows in the dining room and three bedrooms, and we late for our dinner date with Liz’s mom Pat, and I’m sure grandpa Frank was getting hungry because he eats early and is in bed by 8PM.  Knowing that Pat has made the work crew a great dinner is always a motivating factor and sure enough we were hurrying frantically to get to a stopping point and sit down to the feast.

Sunday started off slow, with little to show for our number one priority:  to get enough done so that others could come in and work on the electrical and plumbing.  Of course, every work weekend requires at least one trip to Home Depot, and sunday morning started with a long list of long 12 foot 2×10′s, concrete, mortar, bolts, and caulk.  Dad’s truck has not made a trip to Chicago in a while now, so it was up to Matt’s Mazda to haul the 12 footers back to the house.  Luckily even though the safety flag flew off in the first two minutes of the journey everything made it back safely.

Sunday was busy, especially when Randy (II) showed up unexpectedly to help out.  In fact, it was slightly controlled chaos.  There was debris flying everywhere from crumbling masonary walls, long 9 foot studs for the kitchen wall, chords for the various saws, levels, and mom scurring back and forth between Randy (II) and I putting up the kitchen wall, Dad filling in the blocks in the old pantry window, and Matt taking down the remaining original masonary wall dividing the kitchen and the back room.  I don’t think Randy’s sensitive acoustic engineering ears did well with the loud saws and nobody could handle the window being open long because the gail force winds were blowing through from the rapidly changing weather.  But Sunday was a resounding success with a new kitchen window and filled old window, a framed wall and a beam in place between the kitchen and back room.

Monday all we had to get done was the plumbing wall in the bathroom for the tub and moving the bathroom door so that the tub could fit in its new place.  This wall is only about three two and a half feet.  What made it so horrible was the sinking feeling that the right thing to do was get rid of the existing mildewy ceiling rather than dropping a ceiling a foot lower and leaving the old ceiling.  After fixing the bathroom door better than it was before and covering the exterior of the bathroom with sheetrock, we realized what we must do.

It was going to be dirty, toxic, and only mildly rewarding, but the ceiling should come down.  So I went in with long sleeves, a mask, my trusty long crow bar and a ladder and ripped down the ceiling.  For an hour I yanked on wood lathe and plaster and was showered with blown insulation.  I didn’t move from my central location on the ladder and my back paid the price on the hard to reach corners.  But the work was done and with the help of another five bags of insulation and miscellaneous plaster debris the mess was largely contained, just in time for lunch.

The five of us sat around our dining room table in dejected silence.  We ate our Buona beef and cold drinks with great satisfaction only wanting to sleep after two and a half days of hard work.  But we had just a little more to get done before the parents left to beat rush hour traffic.  We sawed into the two inches of concrete and tile that the bathroom floor was layed on to lay in our plate, we found the three remaining nine foot lengths of salvaged two by four and finished the plumbing wall.  With a permit eminent we were ready for the professionals.

Well except for all that gutting in the basement, the backroom roof, the other windows, the cleaning, the cleaning and don’t forget the cleaning!!!

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.

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We wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood to see what we liked, and literally the exact moment we stepped out the door it started raining.  We were pretty confident with our choices, though and Matt ran home to add them to the drawings.  We are both really happy with the way things turned out.

Windows in the back/North side of the house with bedrooms

North side of the house with bedrooms

If all goes well and there is enough time this weekend, in addition to putting a new roof on the back sunroom, we’ll also be able to start putting the windows in.

To keep on track with that goal we have set up a tentative schedule with no real dates yet, but we just keep trying to plug away at things on the list. Here is the rough sequence of things that need to happen.

There is limited things we can do without a permit like floors, demo (under the cover of darkness), painting, and trim. After that things SHOULD be done by permit. Often they are not, but if you get caught you can face some heavy fines and when we sell the house we want to be able to say everything is up to code and we did it right.

So assuming a permit is obtained, the sunroom needs to be framed so that we can do the electrical and the plumbing should go before electrical as common construction courtesy. That leaves us with all the set up to squeeze in between the major work weekend that the sunroom will require before we turn it over to the pro plumbers and electricians. The tricky part will be trying to minimize the amount of time we are living in the house without a bathroom- demoing the tub right before the plumber drops in the new tub and shower and then putting up the tile quickly. All said and down I expect three to four days without a shower.

The other thing to squeeze in is the inspections. You can’t cover up any walls without letting the inspector see it. We will try to keep the bathroom operational by covering one side of the walls with sheet rock and leaving the other side open to inspection.

After plumbing, electrical, and framing inspections, we can throw up the drywall, spackle, sand, and paint. That of course will not be as easy as writing it and will probably require the third of our big work weekends when our Dad comes up to help. The first allowed us to get all the gutting finished and almost resulted in a collapsed sunroom roof that was waiting to cave in but got some help from Randy Kelso, kidding. The second work weekend being the sunroom roof, windows, and door project.

Once the cabinets and countertops are in the plumber can finish installing the sinks, we can do the trim work and set up the appliances.

A final work weekend will entail putting on the back porch hopefully sometime in Mid-late November.