Plugging Away at the Details
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 59)
Since our last post things, have been slowly but surely progressing on our project.
The PGA golfer stayed at our home for the recent Rocket Mortgage Classic, and thankfully everything went pretty well despite the fact that construction was still obviously not complete for their stay. We even got to spend a day at the tournament and enjoy it ourselves!
It was a gorgeous but hot week in Detroit for the tournament. After a week of heavy rains and flooding we were lucky that the rain stopped for most of the tournament this year.
Making Some Concrete Progress!
Prior to the arrival of the golfer, Blackie Concrete arrived on site and was able to get us our brand new sidewalk, driveway approach, as well as a new garage floor poured in time for our visitors to be able to use them. As always, Dennis and his crew did great work and are now planning on returning in a few weeks (Mid-August) to do the finish pour of our driveway as well as the cutting and removal of our old driveway so that it can be used as a sidewalk with plantings along it going forward.
Fence arrival!
Only a day or so after the tournament we received the much anticipated shipment of our wood that we will be using to build all of our fencing and trellises! Ipe Woods sent us a MASSIVE shipment that arrived via semi truck. We hired a forklift operator to carefully unload the shipment (we didn’t want to damage our new concrete). All in all it was somewhere around 20,000lbs worth of material, as Ipe is about 3x the weight of cedar!
The wood looks gorgeous, a lovely red color that once sealed will be stunning and if left untreated will turn a light silver color. Calvin has been pursuing contractors for fence removal and fence-post installation so that we can begin fence install as soon as possible. Calvin and Christian will handle the installation of the fencing panels themselves, but need to find someone with the proper tools and skills for fence removal and install.
Landscaping Restart
The next big point of progress has been in the landscaping department. We’ve locked in B&D Garden Design as their largest project this year for our landscaping work, and they arrived shortly after the tournament to remove all of our original plants and grass in the back of the home. Their crew made quick work, and in a matter of about 3 days, our backyard has gone from private jungle, to naked exposure! We will wait a couple weeks to allow weeds and other things to grow in before doing some weed treatment. This will ensure that as little of the old landscaping and weeds will come back through our new plantings next year as possible.
Once the landscaping was removed, we really gained an appreciation for just how LARGE our extra lot is. With so much overgrown shrub, trees, and weeds, we realize now just how much space was consumed by the overgrowth. We will have plenty of room for our new plantings and patio now!
B&D will return once we have our driveway poured and trellis posts placed in the yard so they can begin all of the hardscaping work before irrigation and landscaping are installed.
Water, Water Everywhere!
For those of you in SE Michigan, you don’t need us to tell you that we have been having an insane Summer when it comes to heavy rain and flooding. We have always had a low-spot in the yard that naturally fills with water and then dissipates over the course of a day or two. Once the driveway is poured and gutters are hooked up, water will become a potential for major issues in our yard. We will be significantly adding to the amount of impermeable surface and at the same time the gutters will be routed into this area and therefore, all that water needs somewhere to go.
We’ve had a few people on-site to assess the amount of expected water runoff and give us an idea of some solutions that could help us effectively create a underground water detention pond that will have enough volume to hold all of the excess water in heavy rain and give it time to leech into the soil naturally before flooding would occur.
We aren’t sure on a final solution or contractor yet, but will get you more info on this once we make a decision!
Dig…Dug…Dig again!
Finally, Calvin’s son-in-law Alec has been working incredibly hard on the property to get footings created for our trellises. After digging 9 four foot deep holes, heavy rain caused collapse, and Alec has had to essentially dig them all a second time! With the heat and humidity, this is not a task I envy. But finally, just yesterday, he and Calvin finished up the 5 footings for the trellis that will exist between our new garage and mudroom.
Using a cardboard product called sonotube, the holes were backfilled with dirt and then the tubes were filled with concrete and rebar to create footings for each of our trellis posts. Once these cure in a day or two, Calvin and Alec will install the necessary Ipe posts just below final grade of the concrete for Blackie Concrete to return and pour around. This will give us a clean finish and make the trellis posts appear to be submerged into the new concrete, but will really be supported by these new footings.
Custom Welding Work!
Okay, I think this might be the last thing to update for now. We have a few areas that have been in need of custom welding work… the main thing being the handrail for our front porch. After 100 years and some neglect, our handrail was rusted completely through on the top rail. With multiple layers of peeling paint and a plant hanging bar installed on the top, the water constantly sitting on the iron caused major damage to the iron work that needed to be repaired. We also have two grates that cover our basement window wells that were in bad rusted shape.
The handrail was removed, and once again, we had Federal Industrial Services on 8 Mile Rd. (who blasted and powder coated all of our home’s radiators) help us out by sand blasting the grates and handrail so we could see what we had to work with. The railing was in surprisingly good shape outside of the top rail, which needed to be completely removed and replaced, and our grates needed some custom work to replaces portions that had rusted clean off.
Cal and I went to visit Century Tool Welding who agreed to take on the project of restoring these grates and handrail. The work looks fantastic and Century tool located an appropriate bar material that we will use to reweld on a new top rail. In about a week, the handrail and grates will be ready to be returned to Federal Industrial for powder coating, and then our mason, Franco Masonry will re-install our repaired handrail. We can’t wait to see the full restoration of our front porch! Franco is finally recovering from his broken leg, and should be beginning our porch tear-out and install soon!
We will also be powder coating two vintage radiators our steam heat consultant Harry Skrdla found for us for the solarium space.
What’s Next
Hopefully by the next update, we’ll have begun the front porch rebuild, have handrails and grates powder coated and reinstalled, maybe even have a new driveway, and the solarium framing should begin along with fence posts being installed! So stay tuned!
Our journey isn’t over
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