This weekend the Palmer House team braved the hot and humid weather to complete the concrete pour for the second backyard planter. Like the first one, we are building a short curb to lay the bricks on top of. Ryan and his dad had spent a lot of time getting the form work built so the concrete will be nice and level.
We started prepping for the pour around 9am and after an hour we were already sweating buckets in the sun. It must have been around a 100-degree heat index. It was SO humid! Ryan and Ben finished prepping the form work and surface while Christina and Katherine constructed another one of their snazzy wheelbarrow ramps so we could access the far side of the planter.
By the time the concrete truck came around 1pm, we were ready to spring into action. (Literally, we sprang because they charge by the minute.) It was like a relay race! Here are some action shots:
It was so hot that the concrete started drying out while we were still working with it which made it a bit difficult to smooth out. But all in all it went pretty well, and we are happy to be done with it. This should be the last big task that involves getting outside help – the rest will all be done by ourselves at our own pace. Yay!
In addition to the pour, we also put up
one more fence panel. Our goal is to get one panel up roughly every
weekend. This one helps to cover up more of the unsightly view of the
empty lot next door.
At this point we've stained and installed all of the wood we have, so next weekend we are going to have to get some more. This week Ben will also be working on building the gate. There's so much more to do, but we are definitely seeing the vision come together a little bit every week. We can't wait until we can finally post that we are done with everything! Some day...
After all of the much appreciated hard work that Ryan’s parents put in during their visit to Chicago, the house and yard are making big progress! The last weekend of their stay, Ryan and his dad were able to pretty much finish the first backyard planter. As you can see, we still need to add top soil so we can put all these plants into the ground. But doesn’t it look nicer already with a little green in there?
Ryan and his dad were also able to get the form work built for the concrete curb on the second planter. In order to do so, we had to take down a stretch of the old wooden fence. Now you can see our new fence from the backyard. Since the new one is set up on the concrete pad, we were also able to gain about a foot of space in the backyard which helps make it feel bigger too. Nice.
With a lot more staining labor by Christina and Katherine, we were also able to put up one more fence panel on the side of the house. This was very exciting because it hides most of the view of the ugly lot next door to us. It really helps make the yard feel more private and pleasant.
Finally, an exciting event – Ben’s cherry tree is producing
fruit for the first year!
We enjoyed our first delicious, yellow sweet cherries this week. They were soooo good! We are looking forward to enjoying all the other edibles we are growing throughout the season (tomatoes, beans, peppers, apples, herbs, etc.). Yay for green gardens, even in the city!
With Ryan’s parents, Dennis and Lynn, in town for a week
and a half, the palmer house is in the midst of some major improvements! As you may recall, they were instrumental in
getting the house up and running two years ago when we first bought the
house. They helped with the landscaping,
electrical system, and other various odd jobs.
So we knew we were very fortunate to be getting another visit from them
this summer!
The Kirby’s arrived on Thursday, and we did not waste any time getting them to work first thing on Friday morning. We have three projects underway that they are helping out with: the construction of two raised planter beds in the backyard, assembling a new fence, and refreshing the front yard landscaping.
Ryan and Dennis attacked the construction of the planter beds. Ben had found a company called Colonial Brick that sells salvaged common brick from historic buildings in Chicago. In addition to the environmental benefit of reusing existing as opposed to buying new, this brick also better matches the brick that our house and garage are made of since they are about the same age. The kind that we bought are called “Chicago Pinks”. Cute, huh?
Laying the first course of bricks was the hardest since they had to use mortar to make the bricks perfectly level. This required a lot of shifting, tapping and tweaking. Take a look at the progress, from no bricks to the completed 3-course walls. Also check out the side wings that we are going to use for potted plants!
Katherine, Christina, and Ben focused most of their time on
the fence assembly. Lots of cutting, sanding and staining. Over the course of
the weekend, we were able to install most of the back fence! We just need to build the gate and it will be
complete. In the meantime, we can now cut down the old fence so that we can
begin working on the second planter bed (the old fence is kind of in the
way).
And last but not least, Lynn has been working her magic on our front yard. It was a rough winter this year (very cold and very windy), and we had some perennial casualties. Lynn helped to clean up the planters and added a number of new plants. One change was removing the small sand cherry in the back of the planter and replacing it with a much larger one. The smaller sand cherry never quite took off in that spot for a few reasons, primarily because it got crushed when the construction workers were installing our windows. We had enough of waiting for it to grow, so she relocated that one into the street-side planters and added another for balance. She also planted a few more perennials to enhance the planters. And very importantly, she mixed in some much needed nutrients into our soil in the form of manure and bone meal. Our plants are going to be so happy this summer!
As if fixing up our yard wasn’t enough, Lynn even made a little project of the parkway of the empty lots next door to us. She whacked the overgrown weeds and made a little planter out of some concrete pieces left over from our own backyard. She used some extra plants from our yard and transplanted them next door. Not too shabby, huh?
After 3 action-packed days of work, we are all exhausted and everyone is taking a much needed break. We don’t want this trip to be all work and no play for the Kirby parents, so they will be taking the next few days off to enjoy Chicago, do some golfing, and just relax. The kids (and the palmer house) are just so happy to have them here!
This weekend we began to construct the first segment for a new fence in the backyard. Our last few postings have been all over the place (new garage door, pouring concrete for raised planter walls), but there is some method to the madness (or at least an explanation for it).
The high-level goal is to get the
planter wall foundations poured in anticipation of Ryan's parents'
visit, during which Ryan's dad is going to teach us how to do the
masonry for the walls. However, in order to pour the concrete
foundation for the second planter, we have to cut down the current
fence because its posts are sunk into the planter itself!
So this week we have focused on building the back portion of the new fence (which will sit on the concrete pad for our cars, just behind the planter). While we would love a warm, sniffy cedar fence, we decided to go with pressure-treated pine for a couple reasons: cost (obviously) and because some of the old-growth cedar forests are at risk for overlogging. The pine should stand up well to the elements and with some stain we hope to get a nice, warm color out of it.
Much of the weekend was spent buying, cutting and staining pieces of wood. Very exciting, yes we know. As with almost every project we have done to the Palmer House, this is taking a lot longer than we expected. But we hope the results will be worth it.
The design of the fence is a little bit crafty. We wanted something that looked modern and appropriate for an urban setting. After some design work by Ben and some calculations by Christina, we came up with a design for the fence that we are happy with. First we start by installing the main 4x4 posts which are spaced about 6' apart from each other.
The next part will be mounting a horizontal shelf on top of which the vertical fence slats will rest. The shelf will consist of three pieces of wood. The outer pieces are 4” tall while the inner piece is 3” tall, basically creating a slot. If you're having trouble picturing how this will work, here are some pictures to explain the process:
So you can see how the slats will rest in the bottom. At the top we will basically create another piece just like the shelf to cap off the slats. Unfortunately, what you see is about all we were able to do, just a proof of concept for the construction. We are going to try as hard as we can to get the fence assembled in the next week, but most likely we won't have it done in time for Ryan's parents to help with the planter walls. But don't worry, I'm sure we could find plenty more for them to help with if we need to : )
This weekend our garage got a massive makeover! As you may recall, time had not been kind to our old garage door (pictured below). It started to fall off the tracks, and for the last few months it was almost impossible to open and close completely. In fact all winter it was partially open, inviting a few different fuzzy friends to seek shelter inside during the cold weather (and in Chicago, that is usually not a good thing)…
Because it is not practical to use the garage to park our cars (it is almost impossible to fit a car back there) we decided to replace the garage door with French doors and turn the space into a multi-purpose gardening, storage, and possibly entertaining area. Since the garage is so old, it was not possible to buy a standard size door, but we found a local manufacturer through Menard’s to make a custom door for us. The door would be assembled into one large piece (that’s the two doors, the two side panels, and one long upper transom) and delivered this weekend!
Expecting that it would be rather heavy and difficult to move, we asked Monica (Ben’s sister and former Palmer House resident) and her boyfriend Conor to help us out on delivery day. And thank goodness they said yes, because there was no way we would have been able to handle it on our own. Take a look at how the door was delivered. The delivery guy was nice enough to help bring the door to the backyard. Each of the four guys got on a corner of the door and carried it from the street to the back of the house. It was VERY heavy (probably 500 or 600 lbs), awkward and fragile. While there were a few moments of panic (like when Ben had to kick the next door chain link fence out of the way to squeeze through, or when they had to carry the door over and into the planter), they managed to deliver it to the garage in one piece. Phew!
Once we got the door upright and stabilized, it took a while to remove the superfluous pieces of wood that were attached to provide support for the door. The piece of wood underneath the door was especially difficult to remove since it required that we lift the door while someone used the crowbar to pry it off. Once we got the pieces off, we lifted the door and squeezed it into the opening. Thanks to Ben’s excellent preparation of the opening, the door was almost a perfect fit! We carefully got the door positioned and roughly shimmed into place, and we screwed in a few anchors to the masonry so that we could let go of the door.
After about 2 hours, the door was roughly in place, and we figured we earned a trip to Fat Willy’s (our favorite bbq place) for lunch. We also figured we owed it to Conor and Monica for their help. Feeling completely wiped out, we spent the afternoon gathering materials for the remainder of the installation for Sunday (more screws, door hardware and paint -- we are planning on painting the door black).
The next day we spent better securing the door in the frame. Ben and Christina did a nice job shimming and grouting the bottom of the door. We also insulated and flashed around the door and started prepping for the painting. Hopefully this week we will be able to start painting and to install the door hardware.
In addition to the door, there are a couple of other updates
around the palmer house. First a few pictures
from Ben’s project on the first floor. Their
bathroom door frame did not match the rest of the house, and instead of sanding and re-staining the wood, he decided to remove and replace
the wood with new pieces. It’s still a
work in progress, but can see how the frame came together and also how he used
the router to cut an area for the door hinge.
And also just a few pictures of the flora and fauna in and around our house. We LOVE springtime in Chicago! Please stay tuned for more updates on our backyard project, there will be a lot of progress in the coming weeks!
This weekend all hands were on deck as we completed a major step towards our new and improved backyard -- pouring the concrete foundation for the fence and planter on the west side of our property. For the past two weeks, Ben has been building the formwork for the pour. As you can see, along the back of the planter there is a deep hole to support the fence posts, and around the planter we are pouring a short concrete curb on top of which the brick planter walls will sit.
Having completed this preparatory work, we needed to decide how to actually pour the concrete. One option would be to buy bags of concrete mix and then mix them in a wheelbarrow one at a time. We've done this for smaller jobs around the house, but for this size job it would be about 40 bags of concrete. With each bag weighing in at 80 lbs., this would be a ton and a half of concrete -- pretty intense. The alternative would be to hire a concrete truck to come out to our house, and all we would need to do would be to transport wheelbarrows of pre-mixed concrete between the truck and the planter. I think you can guess which option we selected.
Because the concrete service charged us by the minute, we prepared ourselves for a very intense spurt of concrete pouring. We had to buy a second wheelbarrow, and Katherine and Christina constructed a groovy little ramp to aid in the pouring.
Once the concrete truck arrived, it was like we were in a relay race with teams of two manning each wheelbarrow. All in all, it took us about 45 minutes to complete the pour. Hiring the truck was invaluable, we can't imagine how exhausted we would have been if we had mixed it all ourselves by hand. Here are a few photos we managed to snap during the pour.
And here is the final product! The concrete is still setting, and we probably won't remove the formwork for a week. But you can start to see our plan coming to life!
Spring has sprung in Chicago! We hope you had a wonderful winter... it's been a while since we last posted! We are just coming out of our groggy post-winter haze... and ready to be treating the palmer house to some TLC!
So far we have been laying the groundwork for the year's big project... the backyard. To recap, it was a big pad of concrete when we bought the house, and at the end of last summer we cut two openings for planters. The plan this year is to turn those openings into raised brick planter beds and the enclose the backyard with a new fence.
We also need to replace the sad door on our garage. It is a conventional garage door right now, but since we can't actually use it to park a car (we can't fit a car back there -- automobiles must have been smaller back when the house was built in 1890) we are going to put french doors up instead! The door is in bad shape --- it pretty much has fallen off the tracks and won't really open or close anymore. We ordered a new door already, and this past week we (meaning Ben) have been prepping the area for its installation -- removing the old door, its frame, and repairing areas around the opening that had become rotted / worn. This weekend Ben and Ryan also poured a new concrete base for the door to rest on that is level. Take a look:
And we FINALLY installed security bars on the basement windows which were missing bars when we moved in. Don't those spikes looks scary?
We'll keep you posted as the backyard progresses. Thanks for stopping by!
With winter fast on our heels, the palmer house team has been working tirelessly trying to squeeze in the last remaining outdoor projects for the year. After about 5 weekends of work, we are happy to announce that we are done refinishing the front door! Take a look at the pictures. After completely sanding the old finish and stain, we restained the wood with a reddish-brown color and then resealed it with polyeurathane to protect it from the harsh winter. We even polished the brass mail slot and kickplate!
And FINALLY, a special message from the palmer house team. Regardless of who you cast your ballot for, everybody should get out there on November 4th and...
Trying to make the most of the last days of summer, we have two major projects that have started in the last two weeks. The first project is the long-awaited garden in our sad concrete backyard. The second is to refinish the front doorway.
For the first project, Ben, who loves gardening and plants, has taken charge. The grand masterplan for the backyard is quite complex and will be realized in a number of stages -- this summer (Stage 1) our goal is to simply cut out and remove the areas of the concrete that will eventually contain the raised garden planters.
Check out these pictures which show how Ben has cut and jackhammered out two large plots for the garden. One garden plot will be in along the side of the house, in front of the vestigal garage door. The other will be behind the house along the fence that we park our cars behind.
While this work was incredibly fatiguing, there's the added task of actually removing the concrete pieces once they are hammered out of the ground. For this, Ben got help from Ryan as well as their brother-in-law David, who was unfortunate enough to be visiting them from Santa Fe this past weekend. Good thing he has muscles and is not afraid to use them.
The next step is to rent a dumpster to haul away the concrete rubble. Then we will be ready to pour the concrete footings for the planter walls which we will build next year.
The other big project we are hoping to complete in the next few weeks is a complete refinishing of our front door. We love our front door, although it has been severely negleted over the past few decades. The finish on the door and doorframe is pretty deteriorated, and the wood is very dry and (in a few places) a bit rotted.
What we would like to do is completely resand all of the wood, restain it and then apply a fresh coat of polyurethane to seal out the moisture. This weekend we began the main chunk of the work which is to sand the door down to the natural wood. There are a few places which are large and flat, allowing us to use an orbital sander which makes the work go quickly. Unfortunately the majority of the surfaces are smaller, groved pieces which require hand sanding.
We were able to cover a lot of ground, but we probably have one more weekend's worth of sanding. While the doorway looks rather splotchy now, ideally we will sand all of the surfaces evenly before proceeding with the finish. I guess it needs to get worse before it gets better!
Summer in Chicago is such a wonderful time. It's always crazy busy with activities and projects, as if we try to cram an entire year's worth of stuff into a single season. At the Palmer House, we've been trying to keep outdoors as much as possible beautifying our green space.
In our last post we showed the new fence we had installed in the front yard. With that done, we have been able to make more progress on the final front yard plan. Since our house is on a grade, we need something to hold the soil back against the sidewalk. This wasn't a problem so much in the past because the old fence had a small concrete wall at the foot of the fence that did the job. But with our new fence, we needed to do something to keep the soil from washing away, so the big project was to use the same landscaping brick that we have in the front parkway as a retaining wall behind the new fence.
We spent one rough weekend getting those bricks laid down. This involved digging a trench, mixing mortar and laying two courses of bricks along the side and front of the yard. Compared to last summer's brick work, this was in some ways easier because there was less to lay, but at the same time we did not have the help of Ryan's parents. But they taught us well, and we are pretty happy with how it turned out.
This picture was taken immediately after finishing the brick work. You can also see some new additions ot the yard -- a green japanese maple in the lower left corner, a row of 6 boxwoods lining the fence, and some ferns in the far corner near the stairs. In general we are trying for a more lush green perennial landscape. Here are some images of the yard after some weeks have past and the plants have been able to take root.
And finally, some exciting news on the first floor, the staining has begun! You recall the endless postings about the wood staining work on the second floor windows? Well the wonderful journey has begun for the Harbers. They had a trickier time settling on a color since their wood trim is not as homogeneous as on the second floor, so it was hard to decide what color to match with. Some of their trim is a deep dark reddish brown, while other parts are a more golden, yellowish color. In the end, they decided to match the darker reddish brown color. They have already completed one window and are zipping through the second one! They want to finish the bedroom ones first so they can finally install real window treatments. Looks nice so far!
Recent Comments
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Bridget said:
[this is good]Its exciting to see new projects for the Palmer House. read more
on new projects! -
Sonia said:
[this is good]Ben, Christina, Ryan and Katherine, You guys are a GREAT team. All the hard work is paying off. Your home... read more
on Opened up living room entry -
Tina said:
Now I get your roof story! LOL. Beautiful job on the roof. read more
on weed wacking ahoy! -
Wow the door looks great! Great job you guys. read more
on refinished door! (plus a special message from the palmer house)