The Brandt Blog

What could be better than seeing a crew working on a Saturday morning? Anne and I stopped during our walk to meet Al Stanalus and his team of concrete professionals while they were measuring and installing the forms that will ultimately cast the concrete footings upon which the foundation walls will be built. It’s kind of […]

Okay…so it’s just a hole.  But it’s done; and that makes us happy. We’re trying to figure out what the notched looking thingy is where the garage will be.    

The progress on ‘the DIG’ is moving pretty fast.  I stopped by at lunch and talked with the backhoe operator for a few minutes; he said that he’d likely be finished digging tomorrow. Here’s a couple of new views showing today’s work.   

          The village yesterday issued our Building Permit and in near immediate response, Rick got word to the excavators who sent the trucks this morning.  Thus, the DIG has begun. It’s a little hard to show what’s going on without getting “wet and muddy” but it looks like they’re either grading the […]

The tree-guys showed up on Friday to take down three trees left on the lot: a 20′ Magnolia, a 30′ White Pine and a 50′ Maple.  The Maple had quite the large trunk but for some reason didn’t have very well-defined rings.  Thus, we’ll never know its final age.  We guess at least 100 years. […]

Here’s what the lot looks like…undeveloped. We’re not sure where they found all the dirt to fill in the hole formerly known as “the foundation” and we’re looking forward to counting the rings on the big maple tree at the center of the picture.

The house that has stood at 215 Sunset Dr. since 1927 was taken down in less than two days.  The backhoe made quick work of everything from the roof to the foundation and from the garage to the old patio. Ironically, the backhoe operator grew up in Libertyville and was friends with a few people […]

There’s that old saying, “They don’t make things like they used to” that I’ll here express an appreciation for being true. We walked through the old house looking for things to salvage and incorporate into the new house: door hardware, doors, structural timbers, stone work, wood flooring etc. and nothing seemed to be worthwhile except […]

Here are the last photos of the old house at 215 Sunset, taken the day before the demolition was scheduled. We’re hoping the big maple in the foreground and the white pine to the right will survive the ordeal.   

    We had plans to reclaim / repurpose some of the old glass into the new house. Upon seeing the view through the glass we thought better of our plan and tossed the old windows. : – )