The Brandt Blog

Here are some photos that show progress that the various trades are making…as Anne said in her last post, it’s a real beehive of activity over there lately. We met today with: cabinet wiz (Sarah), stair master (Ken), master carpenter (Ted), finishing carpenter (Joel) and had lunch with Rick.  We also had several visitors today: […]

As Hannah and I were walking around the lot yesterday, we noticed the ground had been trenched and backfilled.  Following the trail up to the house, it ended with a power meter!  Thus, ComEd has fulfilled their end of the bargain (we paid them three weeks ago) and delivered a fresh underground cable, sizzling with […]

The carpenters have company at the house…the masons.  Yep, we’ll finally have something in the house besides wood and nails.  The masons are stacking block, bricks and hi-temp stones in the shape of our fireplace.  It’s kind of cool to see how it will vent from both the basement and the great room through the […]

We found a purpose for the bonus space above the Reading Room and through Madeline’s closet…it’s Madeline’s NEW and IMPROVED closet.  It will include on one side closet doors/shelves while on the other side there will be room for a couple of seats.  Essentially, it will be a fitting room in the style of, “Say […]

          Progress continues at a steady clip – the last three weeks have given us some very nice construction weather which, coupled with a batch of Anne’s cookies have the carpenters’ morale running very high.  They’ve been installing the roof decking – a feature that not only has the house looking from […]

Ted and the guys showed up this morning and installed two of the arch-top windows…this after a GREAT week of construction weather.  Such as it was, they knocked out significant chucks of our complicated roof.  On Friday when I was walking through with Ted he commented, “This job has a piece of every (difficult) job […]

Ted and the guys have been working for the past week on the roof…which when completed will consist of seven different roof lines.  This is probably why they have been bouncing around from one area to the next.  First, they built the roof of the single garage, then the master bath and they now are working […]

After having been away on vacation for two weeks we returned to find what resembles a living floor plan.  With framed out walls and Tyvek wrapped plywood Anne and I could finally physically walk through the house.  Hitherto, these ‘walkthroughs’ were merely mental. The carpenters are awaiting ComEd’s visit so they can power their tools […]

Bonjour, Family and Friends – As promised in the 2nd installment, this final Brandt Travel Log follows our visit to Lyon, France. Ahhh, Lyon. The city where someone is at this moment walking around with Hannah’s iPhone, undoubtedly claimed from the train seat upon which she rode from Bern! Merci,beaux coup Mademoiselle Americane! It was […]

Hello, Friends and Family – As promised, we’re checking in after our second stop of this trip having just departed Bern for Lyon, France. Bern offers up a nice contrast to the sprawling, hyper-commercialized and modern Milan. As the capital of Switzerland and its center of banking, Bern is a very modern city but its […]