The House

After going way off the radar for several months here are some pics of the house as it is right now. It is pretty much done except for a few items. We still don't have stair railings. They are going in the week though.

So far so good

The tile materials that we had have been installed. I'm going to hold out on postings pictures until all of the tile work and flooring has been installed. Or at least until 95% of it is done. So far it looks great and everything is moving along as expected.

The wood floor guys started this morning. They pretty much finished installing the floors on the second floor without a hitch. It turns out though that we can't use the bullnose that the stair maker provided. Since the floors are engineered (Saso Floors from iFloor) they come with their own pre-finished trim pieces. The new bullnose doesn't meet the floors flush, it lays on top kind of like a door threshhold. Its not entirely what we wanted but still looks good. I guess if you start nailing down and anchoring the floating floors you kind of defeat the purpose. Which brings me to the next issue. The first floor has some issues that are easily fixed and just kind of come with the territory of an old house. The old floor deck left a lot to be desired by way of being level. It was actually very wavy and undulating especially over the old highly trafficked areas. So to fix it we sheeted the whole first floor with 1/2" plywwod. It made the problem a lot better but still there are some undulating pockets in areas. So the floor guys are going to have to use self levelling concrete to even out the floor. The other issue comes in the kitchen. When I had my trim guy install the cabinets I had him use pieces of the new floor as shims because I figured the cabinets would sit atop the new wood floors. I guess I was wrong because of the whole floating floor thing the floors have to butt up against the kickplates of the cabinets. Its not the end of the world since we have quarter round trim. It just creates more work for the trim carpenter. C'est la vie.

Quick Update

• The new stairs have been installed. The stair guy just needs to finish some small details.
• My friend Ross (a veritable metal wizard) will be fabricating the railings and island countertop.
  
• The back deck has been torn off. As well as all of the old gutters and soffits.
  
• The kitchen cabinets are being delivered tomorrow May 1. Luis will be installing them tomorrow or Friday!
  
• The tile is almost all delivered.....damn ants. Tile guy is starting his prep work tomorrow.
• The millwork will hopefully be all delivered early next week with the Luis the trim carpenter starting immediately.
• The rest of the wood floors will be delivered next week and installed next Wed. May 7.

Expecting the Unexpected

Slowly but surely we're making progress. The painters have started priming all of the walls and ceilings of the house. They should hopefully be done with that today.

The the wood floor materials will be arriving on Monday so that the installers will be able to begin on Wednesday. The installers claim that they will have the job finished in a couple of days. So if everything goes as planned we will be able to have the stairs installed around the 1st of May.

I met with my tile guy this morning to go over the areas being tiled. He should be able to start next week as well. The only hangup there is that some of our materials aren't able to be picked up. Why? Because the container in which they arrived on a slow boat from China is being held up in U.S. Customs due to an ant infestation. An ant infestation!!!! So there is no telling when we will be able to get that marble. And until then we won't be able to tile the master bathroom or the shower of the first floor bathroom. We do have the materials to tile the guest bathroom and the floor of the front and back entries. So we will be able to get that done at least.

I spoke with our cabinet supplier. The cabinets are sitting in a warehouse at Pulaski & Diversey and can be delivered with 24 hours notice. The other trim materials for the house are all in stock as well. The only item I'm waiting on hearing back about are the interior doors. We switched from a painted to going to a stained door. Hopefully that won't hold us up.

We also ordered all of our materials for the exterior of the addition. We are going with a traditional look. So the siding is going to be 7 1/4" Certainteed fibercement with a 6" reveal. The trim is going to be miratec trimboard and will match the windows. F.E. Wheaton is supplying the materials and also pre-finishing them. The siding is going to be an Eiffel Tower Beige while the trim is going to be almost almond colored. I always thought the Eiffel Tower was bronze colored. Nope. It is actually Eiffel Tower Brown which is a sort of milk chocolate color. Mmmmmm. Chocolate.

The Countdown

We are coming into the home stretch. Now that the drywall has been hung the place the house is going to start looking like home. Here's what's left to do.

1. Exterior Siding and Gutters (Materials ordered 4/25/08. Shipping 5/9/08)
   
2. Priming the Walls
3. Laying tile (Materials are all in except some that are quarantined)
   
4. Installing hardwood floors (Materials shipping 4/28/08)
   
5. Installing new stairs
6. Trim Carpentry (Materials ordered 4/25/08)
   
7. Plumbing Trim
   
8. Electric Trim
9. Home Audio
10. Miscellaneous

We are racing against the clock to get everything done in 30 days. We have to be out of the temporary apartment on May 20. It is definitely possible to have it all done. Its just a matter of keeping on task and making sure everyone shows up to do their job when they're supposed to.

Drywall

The drywall has been hung and we are on our way to getting the bungalow in living condition. This is the longest leg of the build process....getting from drywall to finished. Hopefully things will fall into place and we will be living in the house in 30 days. It is definitely possible hopefully doable.

Drywall

Check out my Plummin

Plumbing, HVAC, Electric, Insulation

I have been horrible about the updates. Partially, I didn't really feel like posting photos of the mechanicals because they just aren't that exciting. I mean a well plumbed house is exciting to me but maybe not to everyone. Besides it isn't until drywall is up that the house really starts taking shape.

We passed all of our rough inspections with no problem. The inspectors only asked that we add small items here and there. Once all the inspections were complete I scheduled to have the house insulated. After a long and hard debate we ended up going with fiberglass. We were at one point going to insulate with the spray foam. But it turns out to be about 3 times the cost of fiberglass and it has the same R value per inch. The foam guys would argue that since they make the house airtight it actually makes their product more efficient. However, what they don't tell you is that once the house is airtight you have to start bringing in fresh air from the exterior. This can be done cheaply however you are then bringing "unconditioned" air into the living space and effectively negating the efficiency of the insulation. So, the right way to do it is to bring exterior air into the home through an HRV (heat exchange ventilator) or ERV (energy recovery ventilator) The HRV is used primarily in northern climates whereas the ERV is for hotter and more humer southern climates. In any case, one of these modules will end up costing upwards of $2,000. So, let me break down the math. The spray foam was quoted to us for $12,000 to insulate the entire house. Add in the HRV and its installation for another $3500. Compare that to high density fiberglass which was quoted at about $3,500 for the entire house, requires to additional HVAC modifications and is tried and tested method of insulating. While the foam is more efficient one doesn't really reap the energy saving and recoup the cost of installation unless they stay in the home for five years or more.

I can't really tell yet if fiberglass is the devil. I have been researching and can really only determine that every product whether green or not always bashes their competition. And it is actually kind of difficult to find any objective information. For instance, there are millions of dollars in studies that have been done on fiberglass insulation. However, most if not all of these have been subsidized or underwritten by one of the major manufacturers of fiberglass such as Owens Corning or Johns Manville. I'm also not sure if I care. The reason being that sometimes economics trump principles. It would have been nice to have spray foam but we just can't afford it when taking into consideration the costs of the entire project. That's the unfortunate part about trying to build "green" is that it is pretty much cost prohibitive unless you do the project peice meal or don't care if you ever recoup the costs of the materials. Or to put it another way, I don't give a shit about green insulation if it means sacrificing my flat screen TV. My programs are more important than my gas bill. Seriously, they are....

Bungalow Mascots

Here are my buddies. Higgins and Bentley. Higgins ran away and got hit by a car last Friday. It was a pretty horrible experience since he was missing for 24 hours or so. We finally found him down at Animal Control at 26th & Western. His hip got dislocated but other than that no other major injuries. He's having surgery this week to have it put back in place. Hopefully, all will go well and he'll be frolicking in no time.

New Windows

The new windows have arrived courtesy of Thermalcraft in Villa Park. The Thermalcraft people installed the windows on the first floor. Installing windows in old masonry openings can be tricky so we figured they would be the best ones to handle that install. Afterall they specialize in windows. Here's the windows they are Alside brand windows Almond exterior and white interior with what they call "master craftsman" grills. Padraig and his crew will be installing the second floor windows.

...and a free plug for Thermalcraft...I'm sure that's worth a window or two :)

Framed

I've been remiss in updating. But here's the latest on the bungalow. The addition upstairs is completely framed, the roofing is completed, and the plumbing work has begun. Oh and along the way we decided to break out the basement floor to make the plumbing work easier and to have a level floor for the basement. The old floor was very pitched and uneven and now since we are moving to an elevated sewer system It would be a shame to have done all of the rehab without adding an extra safety measure to prevent basement flooding. Chicago has a mixed sewer system which means that rain water and sanitary are mixed in the same pipes. And most homes in Chicago have a gravity sewer. Simple. But if we were to get a huge rainfall and have the street sewers back up then the overflow would back up into the house through the basement floor drains. Eeewwwwwwww!!!!! The first house I lived at in the city had this happen. Let me tell you this. There is nothing pretty about that unholy slurry making its way into the place you call home. Nothing.

Anyway, things are moving along again. The plumber will be finished by the end of next week. HVAC will start right after that. Our new windows are scheduled to be delivered and installed on March 10th. We've picked our tile, hardwood floors, plumbing fixtures, kitchen cabinets, and millwork. Now its just a matter of getting it all installed in a timely manner. Easier said than done.

Gone Bungalow

Jenna was searching crate & barrel's website last night and discovered that they now have a "Bungalow" line of office furniture. http://tinyurl.com/2lo8fl

Constructus Interruptus

Ok. This winter really sucks. I know I am belaboring the obvious but I seriously can't remember a winter this crappy in a long time. Its amazing how the memory of winter gets erased during the Chicago summers. Anyway, as you can imagine the weather hasn't exactly been cooperating with our project. It turns out nail guns and other tools like to seize up when the wind chill is well below zero. Regardless, we are still managing to trudge along.


We should be completely under roof and shingled by this weekend. Huzzah! So I will wait until then to post more photos. Stay tuned!

Raising Walls

The second floor dormer addition is starting to take shape. Padraig and his crew started raising the walls on Saturday. They should have the whole second floor completely framed by Wednesday. So despite the cold weather we've managed to make some major progress. Of course if it was warmer we would've been a little bit further along.

My Bungalow is on the Level

Shimming Up Joists

I just wanted to mention one thing about rehabbing older buildings and that is you aren't ever sure what you are going to find until you start ripping things apart. One of the things we discovered is that our exterior masonry walls aren't exactly plumb. The rear east wall of the kitchen is an inch and a quarter lower than the rear west wall. The west is also about an inch or so out of plumb vertically. Obviously, this is a bit of problem when trying to install a new floor deck above. So our solution was to sister in our new 2x8 joists and at the highest points let the joists rest on the brick wall and then nail the joists to the existing 2x6 joists. We then levelled the joists which caused a gap between joist and the brick wall at points. We then went back around all of the new joists and packed non shrinking quick setting mortar under all of them to ensure that they have secure ledge to rest upon and won't settle over time.



I haven't yet mentioned the vertical plumb of the wall. When we get closer to installing and framing the new windows I will show how we dealt with this problem. It isn't really a structural problem per se. The issue is going to be an aesthetic one in that parts of the window sill on that wall are going to be bigger than others after the wall is furred out. However, we'll be able to hide that with window treatments.

What is "furring out" you ask? It is when you build a wall within a wall. So for example we have the exterior masonry wall of the bungalow. The interior will be "furred out" with either 2x4s or 2x2s to make the installation of mechanicals easier as well as to make room to insulate the house.

Number 1 or Number 2

So in the quest to build a better bungalow Jenna and I have opted to do a few different things to make the place somewhat green and eco friendly. We would have loved to build an entirely green rehab but these days it still is a bit cost prohibitive to go entirely green. However, we are going green where we think it counts. We are using dual flush toilets. We're going with duravit toilets. Duravit is a German bathroom fixture maker. All of their products come in a variety of really cool designs. Check out their site at www.duravit.us. I must say that their suites are very chic and don't look like clunky utilitarian ceramic commodes like some of the other manufacturers out there. They actually hired some internationally renowned designers to develop some of their lines. Oh and they are using nanotechnology in their products! They have a ceramic glazing called WonderGliss which they made in conjunction with NanoGate. Long story short....wondergliss works on a subatomic level to keep your toilet bowl cleaner longer. I am pleased that so much thought will gone into my number 1's and number 2's. Quite pleased indeed.

Razing the Roof

Finally some progress after all of this terrible weather we've been having. The lads in the carpentry crew were getting cabin fever and decided to go ahead and rip the roof off. I ordered a 30 yard dumpster ysterday and had it there this morning. They had the whole roof taken off by about 2:00 PM. So now the dumpster is full and its getting hauled away in the morning and the materials to begin the second floor construction are going to be delivered.

Now that the construction is underway things should move along nicely. We're pushing to get the bulk of the work completed in 45 days. So there will be more frequent bungalow blogging activity. Don't you worry. I have plenty of insightful, informative, and amusing posts in store I'm sure.

Git R Gutted

Well the holidays are over and we're back to work on the bungalow. I just had my crew through to finish the interior demolition. They did an amazing job and really opened the place up to get the new mechanicals and most importantly the upstairs addition started. The bungalow yep she got good bones. Have you ever heard that phrase? It really gives me the heebeejeebies and I can't seem to utter it with imparting a hillbilly accent on 'er. "Yep, she got good bones. We gone got r gutted and we gone git r built."

We'll be starting construction next weekend starting with a new floor deck. The existing 2 x 6 joists won't be strong enough so we'll be using new 2 x 8 joists. The replacement windows I ordered should be arriving in the next week or so. I still have other windows to order. But since they will be mostly for the second floor I can go with standard sizes and hopefully won't have as long as a lead time as the custom sized windows for the first floor. My masonry guy will be starting next week too cutting out an opening for a double french door to the porch and closing up a window and half of a door in the kitchen. I pretty much have to get all of my materials ordered this week so everything moves smoothly.