Murphy: The Annoying Comic

We are so close to being done with Kenwood! SO CLOSE….and yet, so far.

Last Wednesday, we had a house full of polish men tiling the bathrooms and were awaiting our beautiful hardwood flooring to be delivered. The windows have been installed and siding is being ordered. I swear as I left the house, birds were chirping. I’m just about to pour myself a dirty martini when I check my phone to find 4 missed calls and 4 voicemails – there’s no gas in the house.

*pause*

Excuse me *mild laugh*, what?

No gas.

No gas = no heat.

Of course there’s no heat in the house anymore! The flooring was just delivered and needs to be acclimated, we have marble tile on the walls that needs to dry, and we have shiny copper pipes that have water in them! When else could this possibly happen?! It’s okay, if I can handle dumpster delivery, I can handle gas delivery. So, I call the gas company and speak to a woman who seems angry that I was born and tells me, basically, that nothing can be resolved until the morning. I glance over to watch Tom Skilling announcing record low temperatures and an incoming blizzard overnight.

You know what, I’ll take that martini dry.

Thursday morning, I call the gas company who still seems unimpressed with my potential thousands in losses here. I then proceed to drive downtown to the gas company in a blizzard to speak to someone in person.

Upon arriving at the building, the front desk tells me that “the office is not for customer service” (ironic, I know) . So, I went back to my car parked in front of the building and called them. On the bright side, the woman I spoke with was extremely nice while pointing out my insignificance in the world.

It’s now been 7 days since we’ve had heat in the house. We’ve drained the pipes and poor Sebastien is working with the kerosene generator he hates so much while laying freezing stone with his bare hands.

Sebastien has primarily been focusing on the master bathroom. We have marble everything in the master bath. Marble is beautiful – it’s tricky though. Let’s not forget that marble is, in fact, stone so it has character that you have to work around. This character includes personality traits like non-conforming edges:

See the problem?

You may not notice a bigger gap between the shapes on one sheet, you will notice it across 25 sheets on the floor. So, Sebastien has to cut the netting individually to make it more uniform – or make sure those sheets are under the cabinets.

Another character trait: waves. Waves are gorgeous on a giant slab that’s going, say, on a counter. When it’s cut into subway tile pieces for a shower, we have to be careful. Sebastien hand picks each tile and matches them like a puzzle so that we still have continuous waves going up the walls:

Finally, just to keep it interesting, we have a bench seat in the steam shower. This is very functional for the avid spa-goer; however, it adds dimension to the look of the shower. This means that when you look at the wall of the shower from the closest wall across to the wall behind the bench seat (which is further back), your eye should not move. Your eye should not want to look up and down as you scan. Visually, the point of reference should be identical. This is achieved by making sure your plumb line goes straight across the entire shower:

Notice how the laser hits the same row of tiles all the way across? This is what separates the goods from the greats – and Sebastien is great.

So, all in all, we’re still freezing. At least we have something pretty to look at while digging into our pockets.

Welcome to Chiberia!

Sweet Home Chicago! How we love you so! Just when we were starting to get rolling on finishing Kenwood and beginning Hoyne, you feel the need to have a sense of humor…you are so funny.

This is my office window:

After a 45 minute site visit at Hoyne on Super Bowl Sunday, I was feeling pretty miserable when my (when I say “my”, I mean “Michael’s” – I can do that now that we’re engaged) beloved 1997 Buick got stuck in a snow drift on the street. Then, the GC that was touring the house came with a neighbor to help push me out (his bid is looking better and better…) – yayyy, we won. I was just starting to feel better when he looks at me and says “You’re lucky, I have a much bigger problem.” I get out of the car into snow that seems to be blowing in every direction only to be interrupted by huge gusts of wind that drift larger amounts of snow seemingly upwards, we walk across the street to observe his car which is also in a snow drift and his front wheel which is about 5 inches into a pot hole. I would have taken photos of this except that staying on my feet was the biggest accomplishment I could manage with any dignity. As we’re trying to figure out how *the+insert unnecessary expletive here* we are going to get him out of here, 3 more neighbors approach with shovels.

Chicago: a world class city with a midwestern personality.

A freezing, blowing blizzard and 5 different people who come running from their cozy homes into a blizzard to help…and help they did. For 3 hours, we shoveled, we tied (I tied since I’m a sailor – it was a mean bowline knot), we pushed, we even pulled (not successful)…and by the time we were done our faces were red, our scarves were covered in snot, and my potential GC was on his way to watch the game. As I left, those same people were already digging out another car. Incredible.

Then, the next day and 20 inches of snow later (literally), Michael and I spent an hour digging out our/my car again only to realize that we could not get out of our alley. So, I grabbed my shovel and left on foot for Kenwood:

That side fence is our only access to the house so I first had to shovel my way from the alley to the front door, then squeeze through the door like a cross between Spiderman and Batman (although, outside of my mind, it probably looked like Gollum) before I could attempt to get at the stairs. It only took another hour or so for the final reveal:

Who knew I was cut out for manual labor?

All in all for Kenwood, this delays the finishing of insulation a day – which delays drywall delivery a day – which delays flooring….

For Hoyne, this delays GC site visits possibly for the week since they have their own Kenwoods to deal with right now.

“Winter is Coming”

New Year Evolutions (see what I did there?)

Well, so far it has been an eventful New Year. I was gallivanting through Switzerland and Alsace for 2 weeks enjoying 50 degree weather, immaculate views, and my new engagement!

My second day home in 0 degree weather, I couldn’t wait to see how the Kenwood house was doing. It was so strange to see the house empty after so much activity before I left. After just 6 months, Kenwood feels like my second home – and when I walked in, it greeted me warmly….literally, it was warm. The furnace is on, the plumbing is in, the electrical is wired, and the roofers are closing our ceilings.

All that was left to do was wait for the final verdict from the inspectors. So, after sending emails into the abyss/City, calling for specific dates, then dropping everything for the random date they showed up, I am proud to display our official approval of MEP:

Yaaaaaay. We’re in the home stretch – now on to windows, cleaning, insulation, drywall, and finish carpentry. Now that we finally get to exhale on Kenwood, it’s time for our next project! Please allow me to introduce you to the Hoyne Project:

This is a 3,100 SF 3-flat that will need a gut renovation – full MEP and conversion of the 2nd and 3rd floor into a single family unit. Randy the architect is currently finishing up the Bid Set drawings and we are getting ready to bid next week.

How to Mess Up Your MEP Schedule

Let me just say, I’ve heard no silver bells in the Kenwood house this week. Last Monday, the house was a flurry of activity – my new favorite Mechanical/HVAC contractor, Marcin, was incredibly professional and on-task, Tomas was going to town on plumbing, Sebastien and the other carpenters were framing diligently, my electrical contractor was scheduled to come in Friday, my AV contractor was preparing his schedule for the following week. I was actually starting to think that going to Switzerland at this critical time was not seeming like a crazy idea…

Then, Tuesday came. I walked in to new faces – Sebastien got the flu. My main man was gone. Before I could comprehend this, Tomas the Plumber started asking about the clawfoot tubs – by “asking”, I mean “telling me the clawfoot tubs are a big problem.” Marcin Mechanical starts asking me about the furnace room  – by “asking”, I mean “telling me it is not big enough for the furnace on the 3rd floor…we have to put it in the walk-in closet.”

So, folks, if you’re desperately trying to keep your MEP schedule on task, here are a few things NOT to do:

1. Schedule MEP during demolition. Let’s face it: demolition was hard. It seemed to go on forever and there was one issue after another – between having to manually jack up the 1st floor, the failed pluming inspection and subsequent concrete delay, and the extra 30 steps to the dumpster for each trip due to the size of our lot, time added up quickly. We wanted our MEP guys on the books because everyone is so busy and we wanted to get everyone in consecutively for the duration of their entire scope so we scheduled it when we got the general permit in October. We simply weren’t ready when our time was up.

2. Don’t have a site superintendent. Sebastien was gone, remember how I said it is important to be available? That man is my right arm. Even me being a phone call away creates delays of hours and days. There needs to be someone on site making immediate decisions.

3. Don’t have shop drawings. The cabinet maker has not been out to measure and draw up the cabinets in the kitchen, living room (fireplace), and bathrooms because we were not totally finished with framing. We have architectural drawings and 3D renderings to show the pieces; however, the mechanical and electrical contractors wanted more. So, we have to physically draw the layout for them on the floor. This was unexpected and I am a terrible artist. It also delays them until we can get it done which requires coordination between the cabinet maker and the architect.

4. Have old clawfoot tubs. Clawfoot tubs are officially the bane of my existence. We wanted to refinish the original tubs and use them in the house – unfortunately, the current fixture is deck mounted with holes that are not code compliant.

We need the faucet to be 6″ above the spill level. This means that we either need a 1) floor mounted fixture that arches over the tub (and takes up our limited space) or 2) wall mounted fixture that meets code.

Due to the fact that the piping connections will not be aesthetically pleasing, that meant that we needed a wall-mounted fixture. This brings me to our plumbing supplier to change our order already out for delivery. Now that we have a wall-mounted fixture, we need to cover the holes left from the old fixture that was removed. So, we considered a dummy fixture:

Unfortunately, by the time we refinished the tub, bought the dummy fixtures, and replaced the feet, we were at the same cost for a new tub that we were certain would look like it belongs in a million dollar property. Sigh. So, back to the plumbing supplier for new clawfoot tubs. Phone call, phone call, email, email, meeting! Now I have two tubs to salvage.

5. Don’t stop. Friends, this is the most important rule. Stop. Stop and look around before MEP shows up. Even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal – a little here, a little there – you. are not. ready. Framing needs to be COMPLETED. DONE. FINITO. FINI. KONIEC. FERTIG. TETELESTAI. Your cabinet maker is a good indicator of your readiness – if he/she walks in to measure and order, you’re ready. Get their shop drawings. Mechanical and Plumbing are going to walk in and want things changed – however many carpenters you think you need, add two more. It will cost you more money to keep going when you’re not ready – let me rephrase, it will cost us more money to keep going because we weren’t ready.

Lessons learned. For now, MEP is postponed until we can catch up. Here’s lookin’ at the New Year.

Restoration vs. Rehab: The Painful Truth

Ahh, Thanksgiving week – excess amounts of turkey (no matter how realistic a size we buy), wine, cider, cheesy stuff…and a steaming hot side dish of guilt. That’s right folks, my guys were working on Thanksgiving. Now, before you start with your pitchforks and fire at my door, please let me explain. I told them not to be there. I told them holidays are for family and eating, not labor and cold. I told them the hardware store won’t be open. I told them we’d give them paid time off for the day. When I spoke with Robert, he said “They have to be there. Have you ordered the plumbing fixtures?” When I spoke with Wesley, he said “It okay. They be here. I’m gone.”

When I spoke with Sebastien, he said “Ally, we need to be here because we desperately need heat in this house and we can’t get the HVAC guy out until this part is done. We don’t want to work in the cold anymore.”

Ah, I see.

See, we do have a heat generator in there – the problem is that it burns kerosene and they hate the smell. It’s also heavy so they have it on the lower floors. Check out our innovative forced air technology!

Let’s rewind to Monday. The carpentry for the basement stairs is completed. This week the flooring on the first level is ready for it’s final leveling, the 3rd floor is ready for final demolition, and we need to re-build the stairs from the second to the third floor (the guys are currently getting on the third floor by climbing a ladder in the master bedroom):

Based on this to-do list, we know what comes first: stairs. Allow me to remind you of the stats of this house: approx. 2,500 square feet, built in 1890, 3 floors. Here’s the deal with building code: the City is realistic about the age of these homes. They understand they were built under different codes when it was common for servants to be living in the house that needed different entryways. If you do NOT go near the non-code compliant item, then you can keep it. If you DO go near that item, then you have to fix it. You touch it, you fix it. This is the distinction every rehabber has to consider in each property they see – how far do we go? What will give us a better or more secure ROI? Once you commit to a gut rehab, there’s no halfway. The City will hold you accountable. We are definitely in gut rehab. So, we are held accountable.

Having said this, we are also accountable to another entity: ourselves. This house was built in 1890. A buyer who wants an 1890 house…well, wants an 1890 house. They do not want a contemporary layout inside, they appreciate the quirky corners, and they need to see originality. We can’t just “flip” this house, we need to restore it. I’m not pretending to be a restoration expert, I do consider myself someone who respects real estate. I don’t want to make this house what it’s not. I do have to make it accessible to the modern world and I do have to obey the rules. This brings us to the octo-window:

I’m not ashamed: I love this window. It’s quirky, it’s fun, and it’s south-facing. What more could anyone want? I have speant a month designing an entire master closet around this window. Now, the stairs are ripped out:

Again, I walk in on Monday to find Wesley, Robert, and Sebastien in the master closet – at least they were measuring this time.

Wesley: “The opening is not wide enough, this wall comes down.”

Ally: “Fine.”

Sebastien: “We will lose the window” *pointing at octo-window*

Ally: “No!” *re-collecting herself* …”Why?”

Wesley: “Code. We need 14 inches.” *pulls out measuring tape to show me that the stairs go over the window*

Ally: “Can’t we go the other way, into the hallway?”

Wesley: “No, then hallway not big enough.”

Ally: “Can’t we move the 2nd bedroom wall over for the hallway?”

Robert: “No, then the bedroom is not square enough.”

(FYI – I spend many conversations throwing out ideas for them to say no to me in order to facilitate a productive conversation. There’s no room for egos in rehab.)

Ally: “I don’t want to lose that window. I have an entire master closet already designed with these dimensions.”

Robert: “It has to go. Your words: safety, then code, then everything else. Okay? We have to take it out.”

Ally: *dejected*

Sebastien: “Sorry Ally, there’s no other way. We have to follow the rules.”

Ally: “Well, don’t break that window. Maybe we can move it over later.”

Robert: “Okay. No promises.” *walks away*

Wesley: *sad smile. hushed tone* “I try to keep it.”

So, I walk in Tuesday late morning…to quiet. I hear working on the 3rd floor – I hear nothing under my feet:

Sebastien leveled the floor! We had jacked up the floors as far as we could and there were still curved spots so he cut custom shims, anchored them, and placed plywood over the top. The floors are absolutely silent. No squeaking, no echo, and completely stable. After 10 weeks of tearing down during demo, this is breathtaking to behold.

I call out and Sebastien yells from the 3rd floor. I turn on the generator and head upstairs. I walk into the master bedroom to talk to Sebastien above, turn around, and this is what I see:

Grateful: warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received;thankful

Yes, I am. On Thanksgiving Day, I woke up before our major cooking started and made cherry cobbler, bacon, and a thermos of coffee. I would have taken a picture – unfortunately, I was in a hurry to get out before everyone got up and they ate it too fast at the house. We talked about past jobs, lost relatives, cultural differences, and summertime. Long hugs all around before I left.

I have a fantastic team, I could not ask for more. Happy Thanksgiving.