Day 21 (Mon) - Lots of activity

Today there is a lot of activity going on. We have the roofers, the electricians, and the HVAC people all here at the same time.

So far the roofers have torn off the old roof and have replaced a few small bad boards. The shingles will be going on soon.

The shingles arrived via huge forklift. Don't anyone tell my dad is wasn't a Nissan forklift or he'll be mad.

The start of the shingles going on.

Day 20 (Sun) - Walls

My nephew Bradley was here and he really wanted to help on the project so we put him to work taking down a couple of the supports for the wall between my office and the spare bedroom.

Day 19 (Sat) - Construction

The carpenter was back today and he worked on the finishing the tray ceilings and putting in braces. The tray ceilings look pretty cool.

We went to look at fireplaces in Wauconda and cabinets in McHenry to get more ideas and prices.

And my nephew came back home to stay the weekend with us and helped clean up the floor.

Day 18 (Fri) - Electrical work

Today was a slower day, just the electricians here working on moving the sub-panel from the kitchen closet to the storage room in the addition.

Most of the day we spend emailing back and forth on the cabinet drawings and prices. Still not settled on that yet.

Day 17 (Thu) - HVAC and Electrical start

I got up early this morning and took a few studs down on the wall that will be removed, I wanted to make room for the contractors to carry stuff in and out freely. I also covered the floors cause they haven't done a good job on that so far.

The HVAC (furnace/AC) guys started today, only a partial day of work so they didn't get too far but lots of stuff arrived anyway.

The electrical guys were a partial day too so they just got the box mounted and the path from the basement to the upstairs routed with pipe.

We are starting to get first drafts on the drawings for the cabinets too. I have revised some drafts of the laundry and bathroom so far. Still need to see the fireplace and desk areas.

And I talked to the roofer again to discuss ridge vents vs power vents vs standard vents. More to discuss on that one when he is here next, if it ever stops raining.

Day 16 (Wed) - Rain and Meeting of the Minds

I thought some folks were coming to work on the project so I opened the door as usual around 7:45am and got wet. Again a water issue but only in between the storm door and exterior door. When it stopped raining I went on to the roof as always and determined where the error was at. I added 2 tarps to go under the tar paper and over the bottom section. Hard to explain but common sense when I got up there.

Anyway, nobody showed up for awhile so I was getting lonely, then Randy the HVAC guy came and we walked thru what his plans were. Then is was quiet again until about 1pm.

The suddenly it appeared to be a meeting of the minds, I had the general contractor, carpenter, HVAC, electrician, and plumbing guys all here at the same time. That was a bit tough to keep up with all their questions and comments but I think we are mostly on the same page now. We changed the laundry room layout but most of the rest stayed as planned. Everyone finally left at 5pm, what an exhausting afternoon.

Just then I realized it is my wedding anniversary today and I didn't even have time to buy a card, oops, I am in the doghouse I suppose. Everything has been so crazy we both forgot it was even our anniversary until my sister mentioned it yesterday. Lately I couldn't tell you the day of the week or the month even. I think this pace is going to stay crazy for awhile so I better keep plugging along.

Day 15 (Tue) - Demo time

The entire construction crew is back today. They are in demolition mode. One guy is taking out the cedar closet in the spare bedroom, hopefully to reuse the wood.



And everyone else is working on removing the walls around the furnace chimney. At this point the walls are down and they are removing the bricks.



My guess is somewhere along the way the walls may not have existed on all sides because somebody painted one side of the chimney a funky orange color with stripes. You just never know what you'll find when you start ripping walls apart.

Getting ready to frame the stairway upstairs.



Now that's a hole in the attic for ya....

Wow the ugly kitchen floor just keeping showing up. This one must be really old.

Now my office is really a jail cell like it feels at times :)

We sealed it up for the night so we wouldn't air condition the entire neighbors.

Day 14 (Mon.)- Peak went bye bye

Not a lot of activity today, only had 1 construction person here for 4 hrs today. He worked on removing the peak on the driveway side and turned it back into a hip roof to match the rest of the house. I helped out a little today since he was alone. I can't resist pitching in a little.

Day 12/13 (Sat/Sun) - Lots of activity

Day 12 - Saturday - Who says people don't work on Sat. We have the roofer here putting on the synthetic tar paper type of material on the new roof so we should be waterproof finally!!!! The carpenters were here finishing the roof at the same time and working on other supports. And Servicemaster came out (replaced the last flood company) and setup all the dehumidifers and fans again. And while all that was going on we packed up and moved everything out of the spare bedroom and most of the stuff out of my office to get ready for the carpenters to break thru and build the stairs and take down the wall.

Day 13 - unday - Finally a day of rest, took the softball gang boating.

Day 11 (Fri) - The plywood is going on

We are happy to be seeing some plywood hit the roof. If they can finish by late afternoon the roofer will at least get some tar paper on it to help with the rain.

Although it is getting darker by the minute out here we are hoping for mother nature to help us for a change.

Day 10 (Thu) - Rain and rafters

Today started off early for us, didn't get much sleep after the rain issues last night. Awoke for the third time at 5:30am to the sound of rain. Immediately we jumped out of bed and went back to the roof. This time the tarps held back about 90% of the water and Jeff and I were about to keep up with the other 10% ourselves.

The construction crew showed up about 8am and they helped until the rain finally cleared late morning. The general contractor also brought out a fire/flood company to assess the situation. They are putting industrial fans in several places and huge dehumidifers in the basement and bedroom and living room.


Meanwhile the carpenters have started on the roof rafters and we are hoping they get a lot of them up so tonights tarping will go a little better. It has a 20% chance of rain tonight and we really need some sleep.

Day 9 (Wed) - Interior Walls

Interior walls were constructed today and the tarp was left on. I really didn't even get a chance to look at it due to a panic of rain.

Got home about 6pm and stuck my head into the upstairs and went into a panic about the amount of water staying in the tarp. The tarps were pulled tight but still managed to collect water. The rain was coming down so hard we couldn't keep up. I called for reinforcements and between Jeff, I, Mike, my Dad, and Denny we finally got the rain mopped up and retarped with many more supports about 9pm. At one point we had about 2 inches of rain on the new addition floor.

This was an even larger mess than the last time so we'll see how fast we can get a roof on this thing now. More rain is coming so we'll see how this works.

Water ran into the living room window and down the blinds and into the basement ceiling

And into the basement And down the stairs

Day 8 (Tue) - Walls Starting

The walls are starting to be formed.

Today they filled in some of the gaps betweent the new floor and the soffits. Hopefully that will be better for the next rain which is forecast for tomorrow.

They also started on walls a bit after lunch today. The road side and river side are just about ready to be raised.

They still have to make the 4 windows extended out, I guess the architect designed something that cannot be built exact. They will make the windows extend out about 6 inches and have wide window jams. I guess we will have some window sills for plants or things now.

Side view of 2 walls standing.


Riverfront view of the house. Looking like a mansion from this side.

The South wall is going up.

Here it is, up.

The North side is up now and look at all the stuff in poor Bailey's pen.

Day 7 (Mon) - Rain

Apparently the tarp job failed again. Woke up this morning to water running in above the windows in the living room and down the window and onto the floor. Found water coming in both windows in the living room, in the basement in several locations and went into action action.

Our new motto appears to be ..... it's raining, time for SOH mode (Save our house).

Up the on the roof again at 6am this morning, added boards, retarped some areas again, dryed up the floors inside, got fans running everywhere and towels everywhere. The construction crew came at 8am thinking the rain was over and took all the tarps down.

Then it started raining again. Apparently they are not familiar with radar on internet sites. So they started tarping all over again. Looks to be more secure this time but only time seems to tell if it is a good job or not.

So now Jeff and I are working from home today and drying the inside ceiling and walls.

Oh boy what a fun project so far.

Day 6 (Sun) - Tarp problems

Here is my finished tarp job.


Jumped on to the roof this morning to tarp at 7am. Just sitting on my new floor tarping my little heart out.


Ok running out of time, need to get to my ballgame soon.



Well this is not the first view I expected to get from my new balcony but it does look like a it will be nice. It did feel solid.

Cleaning the house, there is always housekeeping and sometimes it is even on the roof.

Day 5 (Sat) - Decking went on

The crew worked a few hours on Sat and put most of the decking down. The glue smell wafted thru the house the entire day, we were feeling no pain by nightfall.

Then Jeff thought the roof was not tarped down well enough and their were gaps. So we tarped for about an hour until it was dark.

Day 4 - The floor is going in and the furnace is moving

Turns out the furnance is right in the middle of where some new supports have to go so they are here disconnecting the furnance and water heater and moving it forward about 2 ft. A lot of work for no benefit but we need to support the new stairs so whatever it takes.


Here is the new floor starting to go in.

Now there is some decking on too. Looks like they will be lucky to get 50% of the floor done today.