Windows Arrive!!! BUT "STOP in the name of..." a stop work order??!!

So our windows have arrived after 4 weeks, and they look awesome and HUGE!  Here they are in the Cigar Room (still more to come on that later ;) )

We were pretty excited about the windows but then this happened.....

So, in case you weren't aware, the City of Chicago permit office is ridiculously slow and a pain to work with.  Lauren and I applied for permits over 2 months ago, and we'd received sign-off on all but one item. We didn't want to wait to start our renovation because that would have pushed our timeline further into the winter, so we started a little earlier without having the final sign-off.  City says a neighbor called and complained, but I don't know why a neighbor would do that when we're trying to make improvements to the property (which indirectly also helps the neighbors' property value). The inspector  was really nice about it though which rarely happens.  He knew our sign-off was just days away, but he still needed to issue the stop work order.   We're expecting the permits to come in any day now so this should only slow us down a few days.

Support: Beams and headers

Our home is a big old house and in order to ensure that it doesn't fall down when we remove walls, we needed to support the home with a lot of huge beams and headers. In the main part of the first floor we removed three main walls which would require three new beams to support the weight of the second floor and a perpendicular beam for extra support. Take a look at the old floor plan and a new floor plan to refresh your memory.

Old layout - two walls by powder room and wall by sun room will be removed

New layout - 3 walls removed

Iron Beam for the Sunroom - the span was too wide for a wood beam. Over 20 ft gap

Iron Beam Up on the Sunroom/Family Room with a 2X4 temporary wall for support while beam is secured. This is now the Great Room

Beam where powder room was and again with 2x4 temporary wall for support

Wide open - Great Room, Breakfast Room and Kitchen

Game plans are overrated

So you may remember that we had a structural engineer come out a few weeks ago who told us that we could and should raise the floor.  Well during his visit, he also mentioned that we'd have a lot more headroom going into the basement if we were to move our basement staircase.  This means that we would be swapping the pantry and the staircase with one another.  I was actually really excited about this change because now our pantry would be inside our kitchen rather than in the hallway.

This is where the old staircase to the basement was located and where are pantry will be. Notice the curving wall, which is where the upstairs 2nd staircase is coming down.

This is where our new basement staircase will go. This is under the front staircase.

Change order...the first of many!

Now that the crew has gotten most of the walls down, we are able to see what the sunroom looks like without a wall and we really like it.  We are having second thoughts about putting a half wall back up. 

Here is what we originally thought we wanted:

Sunroom / Family room with half wall

Here is what we are thinking about doing now:

New Greatroom without half wall

Subfloors Galore, Subfloors No More

So after removing the hardwoods, we were planning on keeping the subfloor in place and just patching certain areas that needed it. However after a few people started falling through the floor boards we thought it would be best to rip out all of the existing subfloors which were all rotted and install new subfloors. This would also allow for an easier installation of the new hardwood floor because gluing and screwing sheets of plywood vs 2X8 boards equals a lot less labor. 

Living Room / Parlor

2nd Bedroom on the second floor

3rd Bedroom on the second floor / Aiden's old nursery

View from first floor into Aiden's old room

Master Bedroom on Second Floor

Old Dining room / Future Cigar Room! More to come on that later :)