Racing the Weather
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 61)
A quick piece of important news!
It’s been ages since our last update, but for very a good reason… we got married! That’s right! Last month, we took a quick trip away to Las Vegas with our best friends, and family. We decided to tie the knot in a dual-ceremony at the Taco Bell Chapel with our close friends and neighbors, Todd and Jamie!
We had an incredible time with loved ones enjoying the last bit of summer by the pool and enjoyed the Downtown Las Vegas Strip. Brandon and I have been together for 10 years now, and so this decision was a long time coming, but we are so happy with how everything turned out!
Time to catch you up
The Pergola
The pergola is complete! After lots of trial and error, jig building, and hole digging, we finally have the pergola complete! After the team finished putting it together, Brandon and I spent a few days oiling the wood to bring out its natural red color and protect it better from the coming elements.
Once its construction was finished. We had the electrical roughed in, as well as our gas line for the fire pit brought in to prepare for our friends Brian and Dan of B&D Garden Design to start the patio. I can happily say that they actually arrived today to begin the hardscaping work for our patio as well as cleaning up the space behind and alongside our garage, filling with gravel and movable pavers. With weather we are missing our window for landscaping this year, but hardscaping will be complete so that we’ll get a quick start next Spring! We ordered our firepit from Montana Firepits and expect to receive it in the coming weeks just in time for our patio to be complete!
Water Retention
Next up is that fancy water retention system we spoke about last update! So we finally had Dan Put of Put Ponds arrive on site a couple weeks back. He had located a large quantity of Aquablox for us to use for our job site. They are assembled into what are effectively modular milkcrates. After the yard was excavated about 6ft down and 20x20ft wide, the blocks were placed inside of a permeable liner and then layered with gravel and soil to create a water containment system underground that is invisible.
The entire job took about 3–4 days and the results were immediately apparent! After a few days of heavy rain, we had no more visible standing water on the property. With our future downspouts being routed to this new tank system, that means we will no longer have concerns about water runoff on our property going forward. This is good news for climate change as well as all of the additional impermeable surface we will be putting in in the Spring!
Front Porch
Next up our front porch made major progress. Franco of Franco Masonry arrived and tore off the original porch tile and proceeded to begin replacement with our replica Quarry Tile. The end result is a porch that basically looks good as new! We no longer have a cracked and settling porch, broken, chipped, and flaking tiles are all gone and we are ready for our restored handrail to be installed!
We recovered our handrail after powder coating and it looks amazing, however we quickly realized that something was wrong. After a few days spent outside, the handrail was starting to show rust. We contacted Federal Industrial and they immediately asked for the handrail to be brought back so they can fix the powder coating issue. Very happy with their professional response to make things right and we cant wait to get the handrails back because they look SO NICE!
New Basement Casements!
One small project that needed to take place was the replacement of our basement well windows.
With the new driveway placement, these formerly hidden windows will now be proudly on display and have been in need of a major overhaul. Brandon found a company Graham Architectural Products that specializes in replica steel casement style windows. They traditionally do work for large scale historic building construction, but agreed to do a small job for us. We had been waiting on these windows to arrive for many months, but they are finally here and they look fantastic!
The Solarium
After many many hours of work we can finally say that solarium framing is complete. We had several hiccups in our original plan which caused us to need assistance from a structural engineer. One of our major problems was with the roof of the solarium. The large skylight we are placing on the structure meant that the combination of the added weight and the reduction of space for wood support structure posed a major problem when it came to determining how to attach the solarium roof safely to the house. After some deliberation we determined that a small hole needed to be created into the house so that a large LVL support beam could be rested on the structure of our home’s 2nd story floor. This beam will carry much of the weight of the skylight and solarium roof safely.
After a little additional masonry work, construction was able to continue. Christian last week wrapped up work to create slight pitch on the entire roof for water runoff and then covered with plywood. We have our roofer Benito scheduled to hopefully come this week to install the rubber roof. This will finally allow us to stop needing to tarp before rains and also means we can start working to close the space in with windows, doors and trim!
Speaking of windows…
After MONTHS and MONTHS of delay (they were due on site before 4th of July this year) I have finally received word from Marvin Windows that 95% of our windows for the entire project are ready to deliver. We have a small delay with our solarium sliding door and mudroom door, but otherwise the rest of our windows are ready to go!
We are VERY excited for these windows as they’ll allow us to begin interior work on the solarium and will help us seal up our garage and solarium space from the elements as winter hits! They all should be beautiful with leaded pane inserts so we are very excited to see the final product! We have tentatively scheduled delivery for next week, so as long as our roofer is able to complete work before then we should have windows on site soon!
The Fence
Work finally began on the fence 2 weeks ago and things moved faster than expected! All of our fence posts were put up in the matter of a couple days and now we have been working to start practicing methods for the horizontal wood panels that will slide between each post!
In the meantime, we have also ordered our cast iron fencing from Iron Fence Shop to be delivered which will surround the front 1/2 of our property. That fencing should arrive as early as next week!
Concrete
In sad news, we have very likely missed the boat for our new concrete driveway to be poured this year. The temperatures have simply gotten just a shade too cold too soon for our concrete sub-contractor Dennie Blackie of Blackie Concrete to feel comfortable pouring our exposed aggregate drive. He was able to come on site though to remove 1/2 of our existing old driveway to make way for the new fencing along the property line. The remaining space will be filled with plantings next spring when the time comes.
Garage
Lots of small things have happened with the garage. After completing our electrical rough inspection, we have finally passed our rough inspection for all of our structures. This means we can now start to insulate our garage and start covering walls. Brandon and I wanted to replicate the look and feel of our original 1920s garage and so we are installing beadboard walls and ceiling. He and I have spent much of our free time in the afternoons staining bead board which will make future work much easier. It was a TON of beadboard to take on for stain… but bit-by-bit we have been able to get all of the boards ready.
The garage doors are nearly ready to be installed. We need to install ceiling insulation and then ceiling beadboard before we can proceed with the doors. The cadence of all of these projects can feel slow and frustrating at times. But getting things done in the correct order saves headaches in the long run. Installing the garage doors AFTER the beadboard ceiling will do a lot to reduce labor of the ceiling install.
What’s Next
The patio and hardscaping should be complete very soon with work beginning today! After that we are most excited to get the rubber roof installed on our solarium so that we can receive all of our windows and begin closing in the sunroom space! We also will be working to complete our privacy fence and begin install of our iron front fence as soon as it arrives! Finally, we can start to also close in our garage with doors and windows. The garage will be Cal and Christians workspace through the winter so getting this space closed in so that can stay warm is key!
Overall a TON still to do but we’ve cleared some major hurdles to make it happen!
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Our journey isn’t over
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