About eight years ago my wife and I started planning an addition to our home in Chicago’s Sauganash neighborhood. We met with and had plans drawn up by an architect—my brother-in-law, Doug Julien, who is not only family but a gifted architect. We wanted an addition consisting of basement, expanding our galley kitchen to a larger eat-in kitchen, and adding a master bedroom suite. The one iron-clad requirement we had was that the addition should look as though the house had been designed that way—we wanted everything to be completely consistent with the original integrity of our home. We solicited bids from several general contractors but weren’t really happy with any of them and put the project on the back burner.
In May of 2007 we decided to revive the project, engaged a general contractor, and, after going through the labors of Hercules in wrangling with the city of Chicago, secured our building permit in April of 2008, just eleven months after starting the process. When we’ve told building trades professionals our story they’ve reacted with a certain amount of awe that an amateur, negotiating with the city for the very first time, could have secured a building permit from the city of Chicago over such a short period. My only explanations are grit and determination. We were told the project would take roughly 120 days.
We broke ground on June 6, demolishing our old screened back porch, and excavating the new foundation and basement. Footings were poured on on June 11 and forms for the new foundation were started on June 13. There were a few mishaps during this period but I won’t burden you with the details.
On June 16 the forms were completed and they began pouring the basement walls. They installed the drainage tiles and back-filled the foundation. Then they installed the sump pit and poured the floor of the new basement. The sump was installed on June 20. Building standards had changed since our house was originally built in 1937 and the new basement is roughly a foot lower then the old—there are two steps descending from the old to the new.
On June 26 the steel supports were delivered and installed and the process of framing the first and second floors began. On July 3 the skeleton of the new addition was complete and on July 7 a new roof was installed on both the old and new portions of our home.
On July 8 cutting into the existing portion of the house began. On July 9 our old kitchen was demolished. As of July 10 the framing of the new addition was complete and the roughing-in of the plumbing for the addition began on July 11.
That’s where things stand now. Why diet and exercise plan, you say? We lost our kitchen and first floor powder room on July 9. No stove or running water on the first floor. We’ve moved our refrigerator and microwave into our dining room. We’re eating a lot of salads.
Actually, lack of a stove isn’t the greatest challenge. The lack of running water is. My clever wife has set up a washing area on the second floor of our house and created a sort of work area in the dining room by stringing a couple of old shelf boards across saw horses. When we’ve finished a meal we take the wash basin with the dirty dishes up to the second story and clean up. We’re using a lot of paper plates.
I think that my method of making a salad under the fairly primitive conditions is rather clever. I start by placing a gallon zip lock plastic bag on the work surface. I then remove the vegetables for the salad—lettuce, tomatoes, and so on—from the refrigerator and place them in a colander. I run the colander up to our second floor bathroom, wash the vegetables, and then run back down the stairs to the dining room (this is a neat example of the exercise portion of our regimen). I then cut up the vegetables, place them in the zip-lock bag, dress them, seal the zip-lock, and toss the salad. Then I serve the salad onto paper plates adding meat, cheese, and what have you for a complete meal.
Our normal Saturday custom is a steak dinner and in the interests of preserving some sense of normalcy I tried to preserve that custom this evening, our first Saturday without a kitchen, as well as I could. I purchased a half pound of smoked brisket from our nearby Whole Foods store, microwaved a baked potato, microwaved some broccoli, warmed the brisket briefly in the microwave, opened a bottle of Cabernet, and our dinner was ready to eat.
Recently we’ve been busily picking out a new stove and other appliances, bathroom fixtures, and kitchen cabinets. We’ve decided on cherry cabinets somewhat along these lines—a splurge. Granite counters. Stainless steel sink. Moen faucets. Jacuzzi bath and separate shower for the master bath. Oak floors throughout. I had no idea that selecting brick for the addition would be such a challenge. I have never spent so much money in such a short time in my entire life.
I’ve placed a complete photo gallery of the process of constructing our addition here. I’ll be updating the page as progress is made, so stop by and check out how we’re doing!
I guess this wouldn’t be the best time to ask if we could come for a visit …
Actually, we’re still welcoming guests. They just have to be willing to roll with the punches. 😉
Hi, Dave, thanks for the great post!!!
MUST SEE photos of the clever second floor washing station, the heck with the foundations!!! a la: “My clever wife has set up a washing area on the second floor of our house and created a sort of work area in the dining room by stringing a couple of old shelf boards across saw horses. When we’ve finished a meal we take the wash basin with the dirty dishes up to the second story and clean up.”
Do you have any you could post. I’ve got to try your diet/exercise plan, pronto!
love, ann
I’ve updated the gallery page with some photos of our makeshift setup.
Who needs an obsession??
Dave,
I am quite impressed!
A decade ago while I was at UC, I rehabbed a home in Hyde Park with a Contractor.
It only took about eight months to obtain the required permits, after several thousand dollars in “fees.â€
Your experience might show that Chicago has improved its “efficiency†in granting permits.
Unless, of course, you paid several thousand more dollars in “fees†for those permits – if not – you are a God and I worship the ground you walk upon.
That entire experience was one of the reasons I left Chicago, almost cost me my marriage.
Fortunately (?) for us the Chicago Department of Construction and Permits abandoned the system of institutionalized corruption that used to characterize its operations a couple of years ago. The “fees” you mention no longer exist.
That’s good and bad. On the one hand it’s significantly less corrupt. On the other there’s no longer any way to expedite things. While standing in varioius lines during the process I chatted with all sorts of people who’d been working with the city for considerably longer periods than I did to secure their permits.
One thing that might have helped me was that I’m not above working the political angles on stuff like this. I had my alderman, my party committeeman, and the president of the local community organization pulling for me.
I wondered when reading your post why anyone would want to take out a screened porch–I’d kill for one of those. Yours, however didn’t look big enough to anything with. I enjoyed looking through the pictures of your project–keep them coming!
We remodeled our downstairs in 1992 after a flood. We had a similar “camping out” deal going on. Cooked in the shed and ran up a ladder to get water to do dishes–it’s amazing how few dishes you can use if you really put your mind to it. We did a lot of cooking in the crock pot, and to this day I’m not at all interested in eating anything cooked in one. After a month or so it didn’t matter if we cooked beef, pork or chicken, it all kind of tasted the same.
Our heat was a little barrel stove downstairs and I have some old pictures of us sitting, in December, in interior Alaska. We are huddled around the wood stove on lawn chairs drinking cheap box wine (which we had to keep near the stove so it didn’t freeze), wearing heavy jackets, hats, and mittens. Two of our walls were made of blue tarps which flapped in the wind. We’d haul our two sammys, who were quite elderly by then up a ladder every night to go to bed. They were less than impressed.
Loved seeing the photos and the progress. I share your grief!!! Fortunately when we gutted our kitchen we still had a laundry/utility sink in the basement since I felt the big challenge was washing pots and pans!! I loved reading Katie’s ordeal of getting her dogs up a ladder – wow – wouldn’t want to get up in the middle of the night to take the dog out! WE have lots of doors in our house so in order to get from the fridge to the table we had to go out to the deck and back in through the sun room. If you get your floors urethaned you may be doing some acrobatic stunts as well. We had to set up a step ladder outside our master bathroom window and climb in and out to take a shower…it was pretty hilarious.