Tag: architect

Project Review

September 17, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Sometimes it helps to take a moment and look at where we’re going and what we’ve done so far. At the moment I’m thinking about a bunch of different projects either in progress or upcoming, so to keep everything straight I’ll lay it out. It also helps for any random or occasional visitors to this blog to know what’s going on.

So, to recap, we bought this house in June of 2011. In addition to the first and second floor units, there was a basement apartment that was like something out of a horror movie. We spent two months fixing up the second floor unit so that we could move into it. When we moved in we put the laundry on the first floor where the kitchen had been as well as stored a bunch of our stuff in one of the bedrooms. Here’s the second floor living room before and after painting.

 

We knew that the support beam and columns in the basement needed to be replaced, so our first major project after moving in was to gut the basement unit. It was a moldy, disgusting mess. Here’s a picture of what it looked like before and after we gutted it.

 

With that done, we got some quotes on replacing the wooden beam and columns with steel, including new footings. The quotes were a lot of money, so we held off doing it right away. Our son Derek was born at the end of November, which interrupted some of our work on the house. I started using Sketchup and came up with a floor plan we liked. I even made a whole 3D model of the house, inside and out.

 

Then we found an architect and got him working on plans and permits with the city. We also started working on selecting contractors, including electrician, plumber, radiant heat and air conditioning installer, and concrete mason. Getting our plans together with the architect took longer than expected, so we decided not to wait until we had our permits before demoing the first floor. After moving the laundry and storage to the basement, we threw a demo party last month and gutted the whole first floor. Here’s the before and after gutting the first floor.

 

Along the way there have been a lot of smaller projects, like moving gas lines and plumbing, re-routing electrical, getting a new electrical panel installed, exterminating cockroaches and disposing of at least a dozen rat carcasses, checking the depth of our foundation footings, and a lot of planning.

So what’s next? Our immediate steps are to select a concrete mason, since that’s the only thing holding up our permit submission. Once that’s submitted we should have permits in thirty to sixty days. ComEd will be installing our new electrical service in the next few weeks. I have to remove the electrical running along the  beam in the basement, since we can’t replace it until I finish that, and the seemingly interminable cleanup on the first floor will need to be completed, including our room full of lath.

Once we have our permit, the beam and column replacement in the basement can take place. We may wind up doing that ourselves because it would save us a ton of money. Once that’s done we can demo the foyer and replace the bearing wall in the first floor with an LVL beam and columns, and close up and replace windows. We can start replacing the plank subfloor with plywood.

Next spring we’ll put in a new high efficiency hot water heater and boiler that will direct-vent, allowing us to remove the chimney. We’ll take out the front stairs, demo the second floor office (where the new stairs will connect), and frame the opening for the basement stairs. Then we can finish the subfloor and install the new stairs.

Then and only then can first floor construction really start: new front and back doors, framing, plumbing, electrical, and the first floor radiant system (all big projects themselves). Then it’s insulation, drywall, flooring, cabinets, doors, trim. I honestly don’t know how long that will take, but I’d be very surprised if it’s finished by the end of 2013, and that’s just the first floor.

Some of these pieces may move around. We were hoping to have the new radiant system in by this fall and that didn’t happen. We thought we’d have the basement beam in last fall. Things that cost less like replacing the stairs  may happen sooner –maybe even this winter– while replacing the windows doesn’t happen until later. Some things are fixed in order. We can’t frame until the subfloor is replaced, and we can’t do that until the beam and bearing wall are replaced, the chimney and radiators are removed, and the stairs are replaced. The chimney can’t be removed until we have the new radiator and hot water heater. It’s a very big jigsaw puzzle.

With my full time job, Sarah’s graduate school and job, and a 9-month-old baby, it’s going to be a long process. If you’re considering taking on a project like this yourself, make sure that firm timetables are something you can live without or that you have a lot more free time than we do. Make sure that if you’re doing it with someone else that you both have clear expectations. I still think that working on a two flat is the perfect way to do it. One of the things that makes this project so bearable is that when we’re done working we can just go upstairs where there’s no dust or debris, cook dinner in a real kitchen, relax on the couch, and sleep in our bed. A lot of home improvement projects aren’t so lucky.

Scattershot

June 24, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We’re on to the forms and paperwork stage with our architect, which means that applying for permits isn’t too far off. We’ve identified all of our contractors, but we still need to get letters from them acknowledging they’ll be completing work on our property. The electrician needs to fill out a whole form as well. We’re meeting with him on Monday, as well as another structural contractor. I have to transfer my work on our Chicago Green Homes checklist to the official application and sign on several dotted lines.

Sarah planted some marigolds in the front yard, not because we particularly like them but because they supposedly will keep the neighbors dog from sticking his snout through the fence and trying to bite us. In any case it looks better than the weeds that had previously occupied the space. There are some hostas, rose bushes and a couple of other plants to put in so that it doesn’t look completely bad.

Bathroom Light Fixture

I took down the drop ceiling in the first floor bathroom. This means the “light below a light” has finally been removed. I also took out the sink and disconnected the toilet. At some point a couple months ago I ripped the medicine cabinet off the wall, so that was already gone. Still a lot to be done in there, but bit by bit we’re making progress.

We got our shelves up in the basement and moved the boxes and bins we’d been storing in the back bedroom of the first floor to the basement. We need to clean up some of the mess down there before we can get everything else relocated, though. There’s a deadline on that now, though, but I’ll get to that.

Basement light switch

I also started working on the latest basement electrical project. First, I removed a lingering light switch from the “kitchen” area. I added an outlet where the laundry will be and removed a bunch of conduit and wiring from the first floor panel. It is now completely empty except for the garage and the one circuit we’re using on that floor for the current laundry and lights. Of course, now I’m contemplating moving all of the circuits from the second floor box over to it, because it’s bigger, newer and doesn’t have a scary spliced main connecting it to the meter. I’ll talk to the electrician about that on Monday.

The larger basement electrical project is moving the conduit away from the beam. That will be involved, since they actually used some rigid conduit down there. The one place flexible would have been really convenient is the one place they didn’t use it. There are also a couple of junction boxes with countless circuits snaking through them mounted to the beam. That will all need to move, the ease of which depends on how much slack there is in the wires. I’m guessing not much.

Finally, in order to remove a couple of the old flexible lines from the first floor panel, we ripped out the back wall of the first floor bedroom, which is directly above the panels. Demo is so much fun. I pulled the disconnected lines out, leaving one circuit that goes up to the second floor through that wall. We made a huge mess, and also discovered a window hidden in the wall, glass panes still in it. It makes sense; the space used to be a pantry off the kitchen and pantries usually had a window on the end. We’ll probably find one in the same place on the second floor.

Progress Report

June 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Squirrel Access Corridor

We’ve worked on a number of smaller projects the past few weeks. We finished removing trim from all of the front rooms of the first floor as well as the two layers of hardwood flooring in the front bedroom. We also moved the stuff being stored in the middle bedroom to the back so we could take down the drop ceiling, and did some cleanup of the resulting giant piles of wood and debris.

I got the mulch spread on the front easement, leaving only some small tufts of grass in the back yard to be dealt with. We put up a locking mailbox to hopefully resolve our missing mail issues. We set up a cheap swimming pool in the back yard since we don’t have air conditioning, but the weather immediately dropped into the forties.

We met with an HVAC contractor that we like and got some new ideas on how to do the radiant. We also met with our architect and discussed plan revisions, including the back deck and more recently the garage. One potential challenge with the deck is a section of code requiring the second floor deck to be no more than 12′ above grade, when our second floor is 15′ 6″ above grade.

Yesterday Sarah heard some kind of animal in the walls. An inspection of the attic revealed that my hole patching was effective in preventing anything from getting into the attic, but the rot on our top plate was allowing squirrels to get into the wall without even getting into the attic. I spent the better part of two hours getting metal mesh and brick into position to block it out, reaching out the tiny hole in the soffit and sliding it back and forth, using a makeup mirror to see what I was doing. So far today they haven’t returned, so that’s a good sign.

I’m contemplating how to re-run the gas lines in the basement so they don’t run along the support beam, since they’ll be in the way when we replace the beam. We have a gas inspection on Monday that may provide additional to-dos. I turned off the boiler since the weather was in the nineties, but with the temperature shift the house was sixty-three degrees this morning.

Our next step is to buy some more shelving and move everything being stored on the first floor into the basement. We’ll cover it with tarps to shield it from some of the dust and once the gas lines are re-configured we can move the laundry down there too.

Near-term we’re planning to get a permit to start demo of the first floor, before we’ve gotten the final blueprints and construction permits. That will let us get some work done, since the whole process is taking longer than we initially hoped.

Inside-Out or Outside-In

April 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We met with our architect yesterday and signed the paperwork so it’s official. We talked about the plans and started working some things out about how we’re going to renovate and live here at the same time. In an earlier post I mentioned that we’d decided to go with spray foam insulation instead of building a double wall so that we don’t lose square footage and still get a high R value. We’re also anticipating having to re-sheath the exterior, meaning we’d pull off all of the existing wood planks and put on new plywood, because they’re 115 years old and are probably water damaged and rotted. We don’t know this for certain, but we’re assuming the worst, given the condition of the rest of the house and the parts of the planks we can see, and we don’t want to assume it’s in good shape and then be surprised.

According to our architect, normally the exterior is done first.  We would replace all of the planks with plywood and then spray foam onto the new sheathing. It means everything seals nice and tight, plus we can install the new windows and flash them properly. However, it raises some problems. In order to re-sheath and re-side the exterior, some other things need to happen first. We’re planning to remove the second floor bump out, eliminate and move some windows on both floors, add sliding doors on both floors where the deck will eventually be, as well as remove the enclosed back porch and put on a front porch. We’d rather not make a mess of the second floor while we’re living in it, but even allowing for that we need to keep the back porch because it will have the only set of stairs once we’ve ripped out the front stairs, and we can’t replace the sheathing and siding while there’s a porch in the way.

That leads us to think it would be better to gut and finish the first floor first, followed by the second floor, and then redo the exterior. That’s been our intention all along since it gets us into the first floor sooner and pushes back the cost of re-siding for a few years. Unfortunately, if we spray foam first it will bond to the existing planks, making it impossible to remove them and re-sheath later. I spent a lot of time thinking about the logistics of trying to do the exterior first. Maybe we could replace the sheathing and siding one floor at a time? That doesn’t address the problem with the back porch. Finally I gave up and went back to the original plan.

When we demo the interior walls we’ll be able to inspect the planks and see what shape they’re in. If they don’t need to be replaced, then we don’t have anything to worry about and we can spray foam the interior. If they do need to be replaced,  we’ll put 1″ thick sheets of rigid foam insulation into the wall cavities against the planks, and then spray foam over them. That way the spray foam will bond to the rigid insulation instead of the planks, so we can still replace them later. It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s the best one we’ve come up with.

Decision Time

March 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Model: Back of House

I’ve been dragging my feet, but we’re getting close to a decision about an architect. We’re waiting on a response to a question, and depending on the answer we’ll hopefully have it settled. The quotes were a lot more than we were expecting, but at this point it looks like we’ll be pursuing the Chicago Green Homes program. The price difference isn’t tremendous and it will likely pay for itself eventually. Also, we can’t go back and get it later, so if we’re going to do it now’s the time.

We haven’t spent a lot of time on the basement as of late. Last night I went through some more of our lumber pile, removing screws and nails so we can use it later for temporary supports, forms, and blocking. It’s really slow going and I’m questioning the value of it given the amount of time it’s taking. Even once we’ve got the boards cleaned up, nearly all of them will need to be cut down because one end is rotten, plus they’re mostly short, as in less than seven feet long.

This morning when I got up the house was about five degrees colder than the thermostat, which said the heat was “on”. I visited the boiler which was emphatically not on. The pilot was lit and everything looked normal. It occurred to me that yesterday I had flushed out the sediment, something the sharpie instructions  on the side of the boiler calls for “twice weekly” and I do more like “bi-weekly”. When you drain water (and sludge) the boiler refills from the cold water line. There’s a low water cutoff that had given us trouble before so I literally flicked the thing with my finger and the boiler kicked on. I honestly didn’t expect that to work, but I still got a bit of satisfaction and amusement from it. It was straight out of a movie.