Digging Trenches

This summer we had some drainage problems with the old concrete slab we had that was pitched towards the house. Large rainfall = water cascading down the basement walk-out stairs and seeping into the house.

We knew it had to be fixed, and preferably before winter. So after a bit of scouring, I came across a Craigslist posting for some large bluestone pavers. A great look at reasonable cost. Plus, we could finally put our patio furniture on an actual patio! A week later, I heard jackhammers across the alley and found a crew tearing up a concrete sidewalk. After short conversation and some cash, they came and removed our old sidewalk.

Now we had a nice big trench going through the yard. Could be a fun slip-n-slide if only we lived on a hill. And if it was summer. But instead, i will slowly continue to dig this out for the patio.

I'm finding its quite hard to do a siginficant landscape job like this on a small urban lot. There are piles of bluestone all over the rear, and patio furniture, grill, firepit, landscaping stuff, piles of dirt, rain barrels, potting materials and other errata that all needs to be shuffled from one area to another as work progresses. It's also really hard to dig out compacted dirt! My back is getting a good workout from this, and I can only take a little at a time.

But things will need to pick up. Chicago just got our first below freezing temps (although one year ago we set records in the 80's), so there is little time left before winter to wrap this project up. Otherwise we'll be stuck shoveling snow off the "temporary" stepping stones all winter long!

The Great Paint Exchange

Twice a year, our city's public works department holds an event called the Great Paint Exchange. This basically is an event for people to dispose of unused paint, as well as for others to go and obtain free paint. It takes place in the first public works building in the country to earn a LEED Gold rating.

It's really a simple idea. In the morning, people are invited to come turn in all those partially-filled paint cans sitting in their garage or basement. Since latex paint in liquid form can pose environmental contamination issues if thrown into a landfill, this gives people a way to responsibly get rid of their old paint. It's also an excuse for people like me who have far too much paint "collected" from too many projects.


After the 2-hour drop-off window closes, the Public Works people go through all the cans and decide which paint is salvageable. They then reopen the doors in the afternoon allowing anyone to come by and pick up cans of paint - for free!

This is a great example of something that has triple bottom line benefits - helping people, the planet (by diverting waste), and profit (free paint). I wish every city was this proactive and offered these kind of services. Maybe you can talk your city into hosting one! As for me personally, I was happy to be donating 9 cans of paint to those who may not otherwise be able to afford it. And it was a great excuse to carve out some shelf space in the basement.

Reusing an Old Concrete Sidewalk

I recently re-acquainted myself with a local architect who happened to come through our home during the green home tour last fall. He's doing a renovation of a green detached garage, and told me about a neat idea he's doing that could have a place in our backyard plans.

Instead of completely demolishing an existing sidewalk to better fit our backyard design plan, we could take a saw and cut up the existing 24" wide sidewalk at intervals around every 18" or so. We could then reuse these "blocks" as really big concrete pavers set in a gravel base, as shown below (thanks to Tom for the photos).


We were warned that 18" x 24" sections 4 inches deep turned out to be really heavy, so we'd probably do a thinner section, maybe 10 or 12 high. For our yard, I think it would be neat to kind of stagger sections of concrete, similar to the recycled concrete paver design shown here.

Pros:
Reuse the existing materials on-site
Little to no need for new concrete
Better drainage for stormwater

Cons:
Labor intensive - cutting and making heavy
Winter questions - how will it hold up during snow shoveling?

As other ideas may be less feasible given our modest budget, reusing our old concrete may be a better alternative than leaving things for "next year" as we've been punting on solving the backyard dilemma for four years now. Some of the concrete we have is in really poor shape, especially the stairs leading down to the basement, and need to be fixed this summer. We'll have to seriously consider how well reused pavers would work.

Donating Building Materials Just Got Easier

At least in Chicagoland anyway, thanks to a new organization, the ReBuilding Exchange. Here's what they do:

The mission of the ReBuilding Exchange is to divert building materials from the waste stream and make them accessible to the public for reuse, protecting community health, creating jobs and saving resources.

They have a great list of all the materials they accept from 2x4s, to old doors and windows, to cabinets and more! Bonus: you get a donation receipt that can be a tax deduction next year.

The ReBuilding Exchange is having a grand opening on Friday, February 13th, with an open house, a live and silent auction, live music, food and drinks. Although Illinois has other locations such as the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Chicago Heights and Elgin, it's nice to see another entity promote the reuse of quality building materials right in the city. The ReBuilding Exchange is located at:

3335 West 47th Street
Chicago, IL 60632

Our garage has been a bit of a storage area for building materials taken / left over from Humphrey House that I was saving because I just couldn't see them going to waste. Now I know where to take them to give them new life when I clean out the garage next spring!

Chicago chemicals and computer recycling event

Household Chemicals and Computer Recycling Facility Open
- Saturday, September 6 from 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
- 1150 N. North Branch St.

Rid your home of unwanted paints, chemicals, and computers at our
Household Chemicals and Computer Recycling Facility, 1150 N. North
Branch (two blocks east of the Kennedy at Division St.) For more
information and a complete list of accepted materials, visit
www.cityofchicago.org/environment and click on “Household Chemicals
and Computer Recycling Facility” on the right-hand side.

Rocking the Block

In our third summer at Humphrey House, we finally made it to our first neighborhood block party a few weeks ago. In the past, we've either been out of town or had other plans, so it was nice to finally attend and get to meet so many of our neighbors and foster a greater sense of community. I grew up in suburbs that never had a regular block party, and after this I can see what I missed out on.


Although thunderstorms showed up around noon, it was a fantastic day. There were games for kids and adults. As our block party organizer put it: "Baggo, biking, beads, basketball, balloons, bouncing, bubbles, balls, and brownies. Mix in lots of rain, some ice cream, music and face painting, and you've got the makings of a great block party!"

Jen and I collected unwanted e-waste and ran it to a local recycling event that happened to be going on that day. And to help with the block party, we setup a beanbag toss tournament, where people paired up with their neighbors and chose a team name with the goal of advancing to a championship where the grand prize was a $25 Fuego Loco gift card. Armed with good bracketology principles, the games went off quite quickly. We even had a separate area for kids to play alongside the adults.

I was fortunate enough to be paired with our neighbor Phil, who was a self-proclaimed rookie. Others began to question that though as he started sinking hole after hole. Since Phil is a trombone player, and I sometimes play fretless bass, we naturally named our team "Unequal Tempered," giving a nod to the infinite number of notes available on these instruments. While our team did advance to the final round, we ended up losing to other musicians, Phil's wife Melanie and our neighbor, Jay.

With all these musicians on the block, it was happily inevitable we would jam. Our neighbor Jay (henceforth called "The Other Jay" to avoid confusion) is a great guitarist, and he led the charge in getting together an impromptu band for the evening. So before dinner, a few of us joined Jen and I in our basement to see what songs we all knew and had in common.

Surprisingly, after there was a lot of songs we all knew and we were able to hash together a pretty good set list. And even better, we found we could all easily play together. With just a couple hours jam time, "Jackson Humphrey and the Twilights" was born.

After a tasty potluck and grill-fest dinner, our block band played (sans Jackson Humphrey, who we all decided was in rehab) in front of Humphrey House, complete with amps, mics, a drum kit, and some candles to set the "stage." At one point, we even had a fantastic line of backup dancers, shaking what their mama gave them. Our set ranged all over the place and included covers of songs by John Prine, Stevie Ray Vauhgn, the Pretenders, Prince, and Jane's Addiction. I was playing bass, "The Other Jay" played guitar and sang, Jen sang and played the only instrument she's comfortable with in public (a tambourine), our new neighbor Mike played guitar, Deonte was rocking the drums, and Phil even brought out his trombone. Later in the night, Melanie even showed off her drumming skills. It was pretty awesome.

The whole experience was a great way to bond as a block, hang out with the neighbors, and find out who these people all are. Best of all, we set the date for closing the street again for another neighborhood block party: October 31.

Thank You for Recycling

In a recent conversation with a Chicago city resident, I was struck by how fortunate Jen and I are to live in a town that not only has a recycling program (Chicago, for all its efforts to become the greenest city in the US, is still woefully lacking in a comprehensive recycling program), but a very good recycling program.

First of all, our recycling containers are big rollaway containers nearly the same size as our regular waste containers, making it attractive to separate and toss things into the big blue bin instead of the waste bin.

But even better, I've learned that most recycling programs generally don't account for all the various types of plastics. Did you know the little triangular Recycle symbol with a number inside it on plastics does not mean it is recyclable? In reality, this symbol is a plastics identification code, hijacked by the plastics industry to mislead consumers. This "code" doesn't tell you the material is recyclable, it merely indicates what type of plastic (the resin) the product is composed of.

In most recycling programs, usually only #'s 1, 2, and 6 plastics are recyclable, but Oak park's recycling program accepts the following plastics.
#1 PETE (plastic soft drink bottles)
#2 HDPE (milk or water jugs, detergent bottles#3 PVC narrow neck containers like household cleaners, health and beauty products
#3 PVC (Narrow Neck Containers Only like household cleaners, health & beauty products)
#4 LDPE (margarine tubs and plastic rings from beverage cans)
#5 PP (yogurt cups, narrow neck syrup and ketchup bottles
#7 OTHER (plastic resin grocery narrow neck containers)

Perhaps best of all, nothing has to be sorted separately, making it easy for those of us who are lazy environmentalists to co-mingle all these plastics together with flattened cardboard packages, newspaper, etc. all in one container. I'm still slowly getting rid of the cardboard protective boxes that surrounded our kitchen cabinets by gradually adding them piece by piece into each week's collection.

I must say that while we don't often wax poetically about the virtues of our city's government, in this instance, our city's recycling program is something that makes me proud to be an Oak Parker. So, thanks Village!

Lost Post: Repurposed gynasium floors

A while back, Jen mentioned that our hardwood floor installers filled the large gaping hole left after we removed the old kitchen wall by patching it in with some old gym floors. This might have left you wondering, "how do you know that?"

Well, after finally downloading some photos from our camera, we have the documented proof of this interesting way of using recycled building materials. Here is the patch where the original kitchen/bedroom wall used to be located (my, how things have changed):



And another, closer view showing the patched floors:


This final photo shows a bit of floor that needed to be patched as a result of widening the stairs, and leaving a nice open area to allow light from the stairwell to flood the family room / kitchen. You can really see some of the painted gym floor logo on this one:

As odd of a choice as it may seem, once the patches were sanded, the new maple blended in with the old maple pretty well. I just might have to grab the b-ball out of the garage and see if some of the talent that once graced that maple rubs off onto me. :-)

Now we're cookin with gas ....

A few months back I began scouring craigslist every night, keeping my fingers crossed for a deal on some stainless steel appliances. Armed with a max budget of $1600 for all the appliances (yes, that's total for fridge, dishwasher, microwave, and stove), I insisted on setting the bar high. time was one thing I had - after all, this was Humphrey House.

It took time, but eventually we amassed an amazing collection, if I do say so myself. Jason found our frigidaire gallery professional dishwasher, and I found our kenmore coldspot fridge, but what took the longest was the search for a stovetop.

Originally our design called for a cooktop, and i found a gorgeous stainless steel kitchenaid cooktop for less than $100 that wasn't too badly scratched. However, my hunt for wall ovens in our price range was fruitless - plus everyone (including our kitchen designer david) was advising that our layout just wouldn't accommodate appliances all over the place. So it was back to the posting boards.

And then after a few more weeks of searching, I happened upon a Dacor PGR30 gas & convection range that actually was priced so we could afford it. A Dacor! Something I never thought we could afford. It was no small miracle, and we've been singing the praises of craigslist nonstop ever since.

As you may have admired on the previous blog, we were able to install the Dacor this past weekend. There was a slight planning snafu - we didn't relocate the gas line to accommodate the fact that our version of the PGR30 is a convection/gas combo that relies on a circulatory fan in the back - thus eliminating any indentation for the gas line - so we have to relocate the gas line.
But it works just fine. Well, at least, pretty much.

The woman I bought the oven from cautioned me that the reason she was getting rid of it was that it took a really, really long time to preheat. She had just moved into the house and it wasn't working out for her, as she was into baking. I figured, hey, I never bake, no biggee for me. And how long could it really take? Surely it wouldn't be THAT bad.

For the record? I turned it on at 7:49pm, set it for 400 degrees and set the pizza on the counter. the temp read 135.

At 8:00, it read 155.
At 8:05, it read 180.
At 8:07, Jason opened it up to confirm there was heat.
At 8:12, it read 270.

At 8:30, the oven beeped to let me know it had reached 400 degrees, and it was time to put our hawaiian pizza in the oven.

I gotta say, it was still one of the best slices ever. :)

p.s. sorry, the cooktop is spoken for.

It shines in its sleep

I got a new camera for Christmas from my parents, and the timing couldn't have been better ... our floors are gorgeous!

Thanks, Mom & Dad & Elm Floor!

p.s. - they patched the boards that needed replacing with maple boards that were taken up from a local high school gym! Yay for recycled floors!

Photos of Vintage Doors in Place on our new Second Floor

Reclaimed Vanity

As our new dormer bathroom as nearing completion, we started looking for cabinetry. Although our width was a standard 6 feet wide, we only planned for one sink and it would need to be not centered but right-justified. We quickly found prices for just cabinetry escalating to the $500-800 stratosphere, and that was without a countertop or sink!

So we started scouring demolition sales, ebay, and Craigslist, and lo and behold, a nice marble-topped maple cabinet came up that was 54", but had the sink in place right where we needed it. It had been ripped out of somebody's Lincoln Park townhouse and needed some repair in teh back, but Jen fell in love with the fossilized trilobites and the price couldn't be beat: $200.

Jen's dad came up and worked some cabinet wizardry to get it into shape again, and helped prepare it for our unusual plumbing configurations upstairs. A little bit of glue, extra reinforcement, and a few saw cuts later, we had it in place. It definitely gives an upscale feel to our new bath.

All we need now is a faucet and it will be complete!