The Brandt Blog

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 […]

It seems a little premature, but Anne ordered today the Electricity and Natural Gas.  We’re not sure where the gas will “be plugged into” but as we see in the photo, the electrical box is ready to receive from ComEd the meter.  For reference, this is located on the wall of the master bathroom. We also […]

Today we visited the site with our good friend Madeline Sefton…who was photographed showing off her amazing balance, agility and courage.  You see, our plan was to first hop to the garage mound and then trek along the foundation top to the window well on the south side.  A good plan…failed.  We had to drawbridge our […]

Those concrete guys can really work fast.  I showed up at the work-site at 8:45am after they had been at it for only (since 7:00am) and as we can see…they were nearly finished with the pour! Of course, with no ladder immediately visible and that they had literally worked themselves into a corner I wondered […]

The plumbers showed up this week with their shovels, plastic pipe and a pump. After digging in the hot sun (welcome, hot sun!) trenches to hold the pipes that will become the drains/ H2O supplies for the basement…the plumbers pumped out the accumulated rain water that had settled beneath the stones.  After this important step, […]

What else can be said?  The foundation walls are up and, although not captured in these photos, waterproofed.  The waterproof guy was actually working on Friday night and Saturday morning. We sure like how Rick gets his contractors motivated to work a little extra when the rain sets them off the pace.