Picking Up Steam
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 57)
Moving in the right direction
Shortly after our last post, framing of the garage and mud room was finally completed. A few days later, we got a roofing crew on site to take measurements and provide us a quote for a standing seam metal roof. A standing seam roof is a significant cost increase from the traditional asphalt shingle roof we originally had planned for, but the added durability, longevity, and look made us decide to simply go for it. The roof on our home is roughly 20 years into it’s likely 30 year lifecycle. Given that in 5–10 years we will likely be replacing the roof on our home, we decided to go with a more premium material, as we will likely investigate a metal roof, or even something like Tesla’s solar roof for the home in a few years time.
The standing seam roof will take longer to get material shipped to us (4 weeks), so in the meantime, Calvin wrapped the roof in tarp and Tyvek on the walls to protect everything from the elements while we wait. Stucco on the walls of the garage can’t happen until we have more consistent warm weather, so that will have to wait for now as well.
Window Hunting
By far the biggest challenge so far has been hunting down a window solution for this project. We finally received a quote from Detroit company Antil Window, with windows that would be installed with lead mimicking Zinc grills inside. We have about 33 windows in the solarium alone, and so the quote is obviously quite high for historic replica work like this, just over $40,000 for the solarium alone!
As a secondary option, Brandon and I reached out to Marvin Windows in Bloomfield Hills to get a second quote. Marvin assured us that they have a few historic replica options that should work for what we need, so we have sent off drawings to them and are waiting on a second quote. They are presently working on a historic Fisher Mansion in Detroit, and so that obviously made us confident in their work.
Our main concern with Antil is that while they will warranty their windows, they won’t warranty the glass, as a separate Michigan company called Sunsmith Glass is providing those leaded replicas for them. Having two companies and two warranties to deal with is obviously more of a risk going forward, so we may decide to simply stick with Marvin if they come back with a proposal and price that is acceptable to us.
Masonry in Full Force
Franco Masonry is working everyday now on site. We have new brick that needs to be laid, primarily around the new structures of the mudroom and solarium. We also have a significant amount of brick repair that needs done to the facade of the house. With the old sunroom removed, lots of brick damage needs to be addressed before it becomes part of the new living space.
Franco’s team made quick work of the majority of the wall repairs. They also cut us out two holes in the basement that will serve as crawl space access for the solarium and mudroom spaces. Next, they built up the brick lower to the mudroom and solarium.
After this, Franco will shift his focus to our front porch rebuild. Our red “terracotta” (actually quarry tile) replacement arrived today, and so we expect Franco to hopefully start tearing out the old porch and prepping it for the new tile next week.
Calvin is now chasing down metal workers to help us make appropriate repairs to our porch railing and metal covers for our window wells so that we can have them then sandblasted, powder coated and reinstalled. We ordered 2 new replica casement windows to replace the original window well ones in our basement. Looking forward to having nice operable windows in our basement living space going forward and a clean look outside where we will be now driving in!
Getting Steamy
Harry Skrdla, our steam expert arrived last week with 3 radiators that he will install in our solarium and mudroom. They are a wall-mounted slim style with cool art deco-esque details that will look really great in the space, especially the solarium! We’ve also decided on SW Greenblack as the interior color for the solarium, and so I intend to powder coat these in a subtle bronze color to really let them sing in the space.
And Finally, Landscaping!
One of the most exciting things that came up since our update was our meeting with Brian and Dan of B & D Garden Design. They brought us a lovely large printed plan that detailed all of the plants and hardscaping they would like to do on our property! We are really thrilled with everything that they proposed, even taking the time to choose water loving plants for our “rain garden” where the majority of our water runoff will be intentionally sent.
Just today we got into contact with their recommended irrigation expert, and intend on having a meeting with them on Monday to go over plans and come up with an irrigation strategy and quote.
Up Next
Hopefully some work on our front porch reconstruction, rough-in of electrical to our garage, progress on decisions around irrigation and landscape lighting strategy, maybe even fencing too! Things are starting to really move fast with the weather suddenly turning warmer. Our concrete contractor Dennis of Blackie Concrete is Edgar to start pouring sooner than usual this year if the weather holds, so we need to catch up quickly!
Our Journey isn’t Over!
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