construction

Making Lemonade out of Lemons

August 31, 2012
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In yesterday’s post about the kitchen, I wrote: The soffit over the range hood and surrounding the window are hiding bathroom plumbing from the attic remodel. The plumbing is only in a small fraction of the space, but we had the contractor build it this way to look like more of an intentional design element. [...]

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Now You See It

July 8, 2009
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And in a matter of mere minutes… …now you don’t! Buh-bye, Dumpster. As I’m sure you can guess, this means a couple things: Our project is nearing the end We have some new yardwork to do I know I have catching-up to do, but over the holiday weekend I needed a break from the computer. [...]

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Getting the Shed Out

June 13, 2009
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Well, after all the angst over the shed dormer in past weeks, I’m totally fine with the outcome. We had it constructed according to the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association’s guidelines, in that it’s located more than 20 feet away (much more, in fact) from the front of the house. While it would have been nice [...]

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So Where Were We?

June 13, 2009
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We’ve just completed week four of our attic renovation (technically 3-1/2 weeks as they started the project mid-week), and the work has been humming along steadily. The exterior work is essentially done and I’m really happy with the outcome. Last Monday the windows were installed and they are beautiful. The long-term plan for the front [...]

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Stairway to…

June 4, 2009
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…the attic (please, I’m not going to use that old cliché!). I need to catch up on the progress around here. Things have been moving along, although the changes aren’t as noticeable as the first few days. We lost most of our kitchen the very first day in order to widen the staircase. It has [...]

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We Have a Master Suite!

May 27, 2009
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Construction is moving right along. They have most of the master bedroom and bathroom framed, so it’s great to be able to walk through those spaces. The roof window in the bathroom is going to be fantastic. Here is the dormer, which houses the master bedroom and bathroom, after the first day: Interior framing started, [...]

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Just a Little off the Top, Please

May 23, 2009
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Our front and back gable dormers have been clipped, and we couldn’t be happier with how the house is coming along. It makes a huge difference in appearance, and I can’t wait for the roof to be complete! Before After Before After The windows are on order, but they’ll take 2-3 weeks to arrive. We [...]

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Still Waffling

May 21, 2009
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Okay, I’m happy with the color we chose for the roof. While I think the warm gray would have looked really nice and helped to ground the roof, it would have made the white soffit and gutters stand out more and I really wanted to downplay those. By clipping the gable dormer in the front [...]

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Invaluable Reader Comments

May 20, 2009
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Thanks to everyone who commented in my last post: it’s decided! We’re going with the hip roof on the front and back dormers — or as Josh at Bungalow ’23 pointed out, a clipped gable dormer (that sounds more accurate; thanks for clarifying Josh!) — and we’re going to shingle the whole thing. I don’t [...]

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