Photos of Vintage Doors in Place on our new Second Floor

Open Houses for Solar Homes on October 6

For those interested, Saturday Oct. 6 is the National Solar Tour, a day where homeowners and businesses with installed renewable energy systems open their doors to the public - not just solar, but wind too. Through a series of open-houses and informative tours participants learn about renewable energy options, energy efficient design, real-world costs, current rebates available, and other valuable insights.

Here in Illinois, the event is being organized and coordinated by the Illinois Solar Energy Association (ISEA), who have worked with homeowners across the state to showcase their solar and wind powered homes. View the list of solar sites on the IL Solar Tour. The coverage in Chicagoland is great, but even better, there is a thorough list of homes throughout the state. Odds are good that there is one close to you!

Simply show up at one of the tour locations during the hours of 10am and 4pm, and be sure to bring your curiosity and questions! We'll probably be visiting some of the many locations in Oak Park, River Forest, and Berwyn.

Installing a Loopy Rain Barrel

The city of Chicago offered a rain barrel initiative this year so people could purchase these at a discount. The city benefits because, during a period of heavy rains like we had in August, less water goes into the storm sewers, reducing the chance of basements flooding. Personally, I just like the idea of using natural water for our garden plants rather than treated chlorinated water.

Jen is cool with almost any idea that helps keep her plants green. Normally, a rain barrel is installed directly beneath a downspout. The problem is, none of our downspouts are near our backyard plants. When I mentioned this idea to my friend Mark, he said he had just watched a TOH episode where they not only installed a rain barrel, but did so with a neat backflow diverter kit. Once the barrel is full of water, this sends the excess water back down to the gutter. That sounded perfect for our situation, so I picked one up when Jen and I checked out a green building supply house in Chicago.


So last weekend, with the supplies in hand, Mark and I set to modifying our gutter system to install this two-part system. Our setup was a bit more challenging as the gutters were much larger than what the diverter was designed for, but we finally decided to create a loop branch off one of the main downspouts.

As shown here, most water continues uninterrupted through the downspout, but some water is caught by a flap and brought IN to the rain barrel loop. Once the barrel is full, the water level will feedback and rise to the diverter, and excess water will flow through the OUT branch of the loop.

Since this downspout was about 12 feet from the rain barrel's desired location in our backyard, we couldn't install the supplied hose that came with the kit, and had to adapt a longer garden hose shown in the photos above. I think I may need a can of spray paint to make the white diverter brown, but other than that, the system is complete.

After a quick hose test, the barrel started to collect some water, so all we need is a nice downpour to see how quickly the barrel fills up!

Back on the chain gang ...

After several months of (well-deserved) hiatus, we're starting to get ready to focus once again on Humphrey House. We had a gathering over Labor Day weekend, and it turns out some of our friends are itching to get back in the rehabbing action as well. After some lobbying by Mark, he and Jason are set to tackle the failed gutter system this weekend (I'm lobbying for bungee cords attached to their waists) as well as properly installing the rain barrel. My friend Michelle, who recently relocated to Chicago from downstate, volunteered to do some trim painting so we can cross it off our punch list, and her new boyfriend Kevin is a CARPENTER ... he offered up his skills for future projects as well. And since the next main project we're tackling is the kitchen, we're going to be scheduling another Wallbangers Ball probably close to the end of the month or the start of October to remove the wall separating the kitchen and bedroom and join the two spaces into one. We'll have to do some investigating as to how that should happen since it's a supporting wall and will have to be replaced by a header, but at least we know we've got volunteers! As Sara said, "Who the eff doesn't like to smash things once in a while?" :)

Humphrey House Punch Out

Yup, we're in training, just like the little guy in pink. Our goal? Tackle the ever-expanding punch list on the projects we consider thisclose to being done on Humphrey House. It's a larger task than one might think. Since we always get impatient towards the end of a project, we seem to consistently decide that we can live with the "little things." However, looking around the place the other day, I noticed just how many little things there are. So we decided a punch list was in order.

From wikipedia (not always reliable, but in the case, it'll do ...) Punch list is generally a list of tasks, or a "to-do" items. In U.S. construction industry, a "punchlist" is the name of a contract document used in architecture and the building trades in the United States to organize the completion of a construction project. The phrase takes its name from the historical process of punching a hole in the margin of the document, next to one of the items on the list. This indicated that the work was completed for that particular construction task. Two copies of the list were punched at the same time to provide an identical record for the architect and contractor.

Here's what we've got on our punch list so far:

Basement
Frame and hang door to laundry/work area (with access for kitties to litter box)
Doorknob on studio
repaint studio door
finish trim around concrete bases
Cut & frame trim around LVL beams in ceiling
Consider dropped wall w/door in hall towards laundry area?
Paint ceiling in "jay's office" including exposed ductwork

2nd Floor
Finish trim painting around doors
Second coat of paint in bathroom
Seal tiles in bathroom shower and tub surround (!)
Seal floor tiles in bath
Add caulking in corners in bath
Attach green accent tiles to counter in bath
Replace white cabinet in bath (WAY down the line, but we'll add it anyway)
Second coat of paint on shelving in bath
Add toe kick to vanity
Seal vanity
Install sconces in bath
Cut and paint wood for 3 ledges in bath
Replace windows and new frames in guest bedroom
Stain oak cab doors in guest bedroom
Strip and refinish bathdoor, guest bedroom doors
Secret passage bookcase (Rob, where you at?) in guest bedroom
Refinish dresser in guest bedroom (not really punch list, but oh well)
Curtains/drapes in windows throughout level
Add shelving/door to nook in hallway
Finish laundry room
- Flooring
- Add washer/dryer
- Shelving
- ventilation????
Frame closet door in master bedroom
Stain shelves in new built-ins in master bedroom
Stain and hang doors for built-ins in master bedroom
Stain/Paint bannister in hallway stair
Cut and stain wood tops for hallway ledges/shelves

I'm not creating a punch list for the back porch (although, wow, we made a mess!) until the kitchen is completed. And the 1st floor doesn't get one yet as NOTHING is done there thus far.

So there we have it. And it's probably missing a lot of stuff Jason can come back and add. But see why we're in training? These are tough guys to beat!!!