April 22

Off topic for a second - we walked downtown last weekend and noticed the old Sharper Image building being gutted and I had no idea what was going in there (I usually keep up to date on comings and goings - so was rather miffed). Well, after some googling - it appears the transformation of Naperville into a mini downtown Chicago continues - as apparently, one of those spiffy, shiny, flagship Apple Stores is going in across from Lou Malnati's. It will be interesting to see how busy the store becomes. I remember when I got my iPhone at Oak Brook - and had to wait for 45 minutes amongst 150-200 people jammed in that store on a Tues afternoon - and the guy said that was a slow day.

Anyway - the house IS progressing. I was able to juggle the schedule last week and was able to get the insualtors in and out in 3-4 days. Which means we picked up a week or two of time. Those guys were amazing - clean, quick and high quality. We went with wet spray cellulose. Its amazing how dense that stuff is and how it fills every little nook and cranny. The stuff is so dense, that just standing in the house now, with no siding or drywall, there is complete silence.

Tomorrow - siding/shakes/soffit/exterior trim are delivered and will start going up. The roof will also be finsished up. Siding guy thinks my job could be 2-3 weeks given its detail. Hoping to start drywalling within 10 days.

However, the realization is setting in that I likely will have to try and extend the lease 1 month - as I just don't think this can all be done in a little over 2 months - its possible, but who knows. So hopefully it will not be a problem to extend it out - we will see.



All the orange tape areas are where they covered outlets (makes sense - otherwise - they would have been buried and invisible).

Connor it his future backyard - manufacturing those smiles.

Inspections

Time seems to be at a premium lately - hence both blogs have been left hanging. We had inspections the other week and we certainly hit some foul balls. Out of the 5 we had, we passed only 1 - the gas piping. Plumbing, electrical, HVAC and framing all got denied.

Plumbing was mostly some small issues - they had them fixed in a couple hours and have since passed.

Electrician had place all the 1st floor switches at 52" off finished floor - turns out Naperville is ADA compliant - and 1st floor must be 48". So that meant they all needed to be lowered. They also needed to raise the lower outlets - but that was accomplished by using an offset mudring. They had also measured some of the spacing between outlets incorrectly (apparently, when measuring from a 4 panel door- you measure from the panel that opens - not the fixed panels - so that threw a couple things out of whack. They needed to add a couple here and there. Anddddd...they also needed to run wire in all the boxes for the inspection to determine the "box fill". So they had a couple days of work....but have since passed.

HVAC got dinged on a 25+ foot dryer vent run...they had about 28...they have modified...we have yet to get it reinspected as it needs to be done along with framing.

Framing got dinged 15-20+ ways. Many I, I think are overkill, but it is what it is. Many are small and are corrected...but we actually had to call the architect out to the site to sign off on something. We are awaiting reinspection.

And we have had a small issue arise with insulation meeting code .... but I think the issue may be for naught - as the architect told me today the issue should not apply to our house...we shall see.

Other than inspections - things have slowed a bit...as siding is on order, but is about 10 days out yet...so we really can't do much (insualtion, drywall) until the siding is on, as there are still spots where water seeps in due to siding not being on. And since we are going with blown in cellulose - it can't get wet and it needs a couple days to settle once installed without any banging (ie siding work)...so we are going to have to try to wiggle both in somehow at the same time.

Timing is starting to concern me a bit...as our rental runs unitl end of June. I originally thought that would be more than enough...now its getting tight.

Budget took a few hits - as cabinets ran a few thousand over and the siding/fascia/soffit was a few thousand over as well. On the siding - I realized that an aluminum soffit would have looked bad on a house with fiber cement siding and miratec trimwork - thus we had to upgrade to a cedar soffit - it will all be custom colored to match the miratec trimwork - what you see on most teardown houses. So my little cushion is dissappearing as well. Good news is 90% of the big ticket items have been booked...so the amount left to be decided yet is small.