A Concrete Start to the Project!
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 54)
“I never had a dull moment at Detroit.” — Charles Lindbergh
Before Blackie Concrete could begin, Brandon and I had to quickly make some decisions around our sunroom. After diving down the investigative path of semi-custom solarium kits to replace our old kit, we discovered that not a lot has changed in kit sunroom technology in the last 30 years. With so many limitations on the possibilities of the design, mostly surrounding roof construction, we realized that for the kind of money kit companies were quoting us, we weren’t going to get much better than our old solarium.
Only one of the 3 solarium kit companies we spoke to could create a cross-gable roof, which we wanted to be more reminicent of the Tudor nature of our home. None could provide the dramatic roof pitch we wanted with our layout. For the money, and after talking with Cal and Elise, we could get a far more historically appropriate and dramatic look for the space by building it ourselves. So we asked Elise and END Studio to take a quick crack at a fully-built sunroom, as time is of the essence!
We’ve created a layout in a sort of “L” shape that will maximize the space while still maintaining the legally required 10 foot distance from our garage. This will effectively give us two much more comfortable spaces or “rooms” in the new sun room, a dining space and a living space. After choosing our footprint, END Studio came back to us the next week with full elevation drawings and a rendering of their proposal. We immediately fell in love with the design over the previous kit solariums we had been shown.
So here is the Solarium plan so far:
The new solarium space will be significantly bigger than our old space, and by taking the room both closer to the ground outside, and higher to the guest bedroom windows above…we should be able to achieve a roughly 11 foot ceiling height for extra drama.
There’s still much planning to do on the inside, But we’re super happy with the new direction and how it will cohesively fit with the rest of the home’s age.
Dennis (Concrete) Begins
After a quick visit from Franco Masonry to sure up our window wells along the South side of our home, we are ready for concrete work to begin! Dennis Blackie, of Blackie Concrete arrived this past week and began to work through the layouts of our 3 new structures, the garage, the mudroom addition, and our new sunroom, as well as bringing in gravel for the new driveway.
We took a piece of our fencing apart to accomodate the new driveway, and gravel was laid in place. It is too cold to pour any slab concrete at this time, but laying the gravel now meant a few things: First, that we can visualize the final driveway better and have time to make adjustments. Second, that we now have safe access to the property for large equipment given the narrow nature of the original drive. And third, the winter will give additional time for the moved earth and gravel to settle into position for a more stable pour in the Spring.
Dennis made quick work of saw cutting our concrete and hauling off what wasn’t needed for our job, and then arrived the next day with a backhoe to begin digging out the foundations. The day after that, the foundations were poured with concrete.
Franco (Masonry) Begins
While Blackie Concrete handled the structural changes of our plan, our mason, Franco’s Masonry arrived on the scene to help us With some of the details. We are in need of help from Franco in several key areas of our home.
Masonry To-Do List:
- Repair basement window wells along new driveway
- Remove and restore/replace front porch masonry and terracotta tile which has fallen away from the house and is badly damaged and cracking
- Remove and salvage original 1927 bricks from around old solarium for future use
- Repair brick face of home at the new solarium
- Source additional matching bricks to use for final new structure bases
- Source replacement tiles for front porch repair
Franco started with our basement well window repair, as those wells will run along fresh concrete and they need to be ready to go for the Spring when Blackie Concrete returns to pour. They also began taking apart the solarium brick and stacking it neatly for later use.
Front Porch Repair
The next major project Franco will be tackling is our front porch. It’s a lovely space, but needs major work. The brick sides are falling away, causing water and therefore ice to build up and crack the sides. The terracotta tiles are splitting, cracking and crumbling basically everywhere. And finally, The iron railing’s top rail is completely corroded away. Franco began by looking for a replacement terracotta in the same size, but due to the uncommon ratio, 6x9 inches, we cannot find a matching replacement anywhere. This is apparently a 1920s tile proportion that is no longer used. I mocked up the same pattern but in a more common dimension, but was disappointed in the change to the look it created.
New Directions
So after failing to find a matching terracotta, or a new dimensional solution, I started digging again for a red tile in the correct size that would have the feel of a terracotta. Thankfully, after some hours of searching, I struck gold. I found a red quarry tile from Metropolitan Ceramics in Canton, Ohio in a 6x9 dimension that strongly resembles the original tile. It still means we will have to redo the entire porch, but at least we can likely match the pattern exactly now. I just need to find a black square tile to match now, which hopefully will be an easier task given the more common 1x1 proportion.
The Porch Railing
The railing is another challenge… the entire L is all one piece. This means we can’t transport it easily without cutting. It also means that if we want to powdercoat it after repair, finding a facility that can handle a railing this large would be difficult. Cutting it to transport would also mean we can’t weld it back together once it’s powdercoated. This is a space we are still searching for a solution to.
Next Time…
Still lots of planning to do in the weeks to come. Rough framing is scheduled to start just after Christmas, once concrete has time to set. We hopefully Franco will begin work on the front porch quickly as well. We are also in need of a heating and cooling solution for the new spaces, be it in-floor, radiant, or some other special combo.
I am not sure if our next update to the blog will be before Christmas, so we wish you all a wonderful holiday in the meantime if not! We are so glad to have you back with us watching the process!
Our journey isn’t over
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