Landscaping has been added

Turning the corner on this project, I just need to side up the rear and paint the door. Then it's backinside for more renovations! Thw last picture is the Gamble House garage in Pasadena. I used it as an idea point for my project.

Google=Genius!

If Google was just a search engine, they would be great, if Google was happy with expanding into free sofware such as Google Earth, then they would be awesome. However they are in the genius category after their latest free download called SketchUp. Thanks to a tip from houseblogs I decided to download the software. I never thought I would even get around to using it, let alone actually liking the 3d rendering software. But after the first 20 seconds of using it, I learned this was nothing like the photoshop or illustrator or any other image software that takes a good 6 hours to get up to speed. The tutorial takes about 15 minutes to complete, and everything else is self explanatory. This sketch took about 20 minutes.

Concrete Finished!

after waiting almost 1 year for the perfect day for pouring colored concrete, the job is finally done. And Wow does it look nice. We used a chicago brick pattern, with red brick as the color and walnut as the release.

A very interesting (and expensive) process to stamp concrete.

1 contractor ordered a special mix of red concrete
2 pour
3 dust the stamp in the release color
4 press the stamp into the fresh concrete
5 let the concrete dry overnight
6 power wash off most of the reease color the next day
7 let the concrete completely cure (about 3-5 days)
8 completly sweep the dry driveway
9 spray a sealer on the concrete
10 let the sealer cure for 3-5 days

the finished product looks outstanding and would recomend it to anybody.

Garage is starting to look like a NICE garage

Carl has added the electricity! What a bear, we had to hand dig the trench because of the root systems for the trees. When I say hand dig, I mean with our fingers! There were quite a few areas where we had to dig underneath 6 in dia roots to set the galvanized conduit. Stone work has been done all by Pete. That stuff is also not the easiest to work with, as each piece must fit in a grand pattern yet to be determined. I will assume it will be another 12 hours of work before the stone will be completed.

Garage is starting to look like a garage.

Painting is just about complete, just a few minor touch-ups left. I used wagner's Paint Crew sprayer. I spent about 5 hours taping and hanging plastic and about an hour actually painting. I may never pick up a roller again.
New electric will be buried next. Trench rental scheduled for Saturday.

Protect our trees

After reading this article from the daily southtown called Tree protectors to organize in Beverly I breathed a sigh of relief knowing we made the right decision on leaving our old growth white oak in the corner of the yard and building the garage around it. Jen and Mrs. Kelly are the ones who made sure we did not lose something completely unique to our Chicago neighborhood.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

OK OK I know! I am waaay behind schedule, but with weather like this I think I'm doing pretty good. With spring only 2 weeks away it is always fun to watch the snow. Because I know it will all be melted tomorrow!

Work on the garage has been going slow but steady. I have finished building the sliding "party" door and I have cut and trimmed all the soffit pieces. I thought keeping open soffits would make it easier to finish, but because the nail holes from the roof have to go through the substrate to grip I was left with an open soffit full of nails. I used firring strips and beadboard to give a finished look to the soffits. It only took 2 months to finish. Next up is building the venner stone base. Stay tuned!