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.