Why I Oughta...

Back in December of last year, there was finally a flurry of activity on the structure that sits at the northwest corner of First and York (just on the north side of the tracks) in the Elmhurst City Center.  I covered it here on the blog and at that time, Alderman Dannee Polomsky of the 3rd Ward shared that there was a new business going into the spot called Beerhead Bar & Eatery.  If you head to the Beerhead site, they now even have a page up for the Elmhurst location . For the better part of the past 60 days, there has been scaffolding up on both sides of the building as they do some exterior work on the facade, but as I walked by it earlier this week on my way to the train, I noticed the scaffolding was all gone. And the building looks great!  They added some black stone to the top and down the sides and cleaned up the brick it looks like to me.  The building, which if you look back thru the archives was a hodgepodge of a bunch of different uses inclu...

In a major development on the construction site, we now have windows installed!  Windows!  Yeah, I know.  You're questioning the exclamation points.  But, listen....we've been at this a loooooooooong time.  And this is a real mark of progress towards having a home completed, so it is worth celebrating for our family. They're not all in - nor are the doors - so the house isn't quite 'buttoned up', but it is close.  And that marks an exciting time.  If you look closely on the right side of this photo you'll see some metal conduit that the electrician has put in.  That means that some of the mechanical work has been started, so once that's done and the insulation is installed, I think we get the drywall hung.  Then we'll *really* get a sense for how the place is turning out and what the true space is for each room. But for now, we're celebrating windows.

It was ten-plus days ago that I posted a photo of the framers building out our new place with walls and ceilings and such .  Welp, they've wrapped up their portion of the project and moved on to other jobs leaving behind something that *actually* looks like a house.  Like...a real, live house.  You can still basically 'see' right through it as there's nothing in any of the walls and there's no windows or doors, but the basic shapes of the place we've been thinking about, dreaming about, hoping about for the past two years is there to take in, in it's full glory.  Or...some portion of it's glory. We've been able to head over there on the weekends and peek in on the progress.  Nat gets there more often than I do, because she has the hard job of getting our kids around all day, everyday, so she finds herself in the neighborhood more than I do. When I was there recently, I peered out back and saw this machine in the backyard and noticed the trenc...

Progress, progress, progress at our new place.  Just ten days ago, I posted about the incredible installation of our water main (under a huge tree!) and now we're already moving on to framing of the house.  And by the time you all read this post, there will be even more done! The crew is busy putting up the deck, walls and ceilings and now the place is starting to really FEEL like a house.  It was an abstract idea for a long time, but now that you can walk into each of the rooms and actually BE there?  It's totally real and it is totally crazy.   Almost hard to convince myself that this project involves us and our family.  We're not just watching something happen.  We're watching OUR something happen! And...crazy?  Yeah, crazy like the weight of two years of wandering around as a family is coming off of our shoulders.  Sure, there's a TON more time to go, but suddenly, we have a place.  We have a shared goal.  We have a home...

There's been some progress on our new old house over at Hilltop including the installation of the sewer line and the water main.  The photo above shows the trench with the water main laying in the bottom of it and most of the photo is unremarkable, but at the top, there's something that happens that I was surprised by:  they bore *under* this massive tree on the property and ran the water line right UNDER the tree. Here's a close-up: We really wanted to save this tree and this seemed like the best way to both preserve the tree and to solve the location of the water main.  Pretty neat to see them go right under the root system. My Dad has said that building a custom home is a full-on problem-solving project as there are dozens of little decisions that need to be made everyday like this one.

It has been eight months since the storefronts down at the corner of First and York have sat gutted and boarded up.   I last posted about them here on the blog back in March .  And that's when the rumor mill was saying that it might end up being a Rosebud restaurant going in there.  But, I have no idea if that was real or just idle chatter. Whomever is moving in, there's suddenly progress going on with the building.  In that photo above, you can see a crew working on the exterior installing steel beams that look like they'll be creating an awning/little roof of sorts that sticks out from the brick facade.  Anyone know what's going in this spot?  A guy can keep hoping for retail, right? Update:   Alderman Dannee Polomsky of the 3rd Ward pointed out to me this am via email that this location is for a new craft beer place run by 'Beer Pros' called Beerhead Bar and Eatery .   From the City of Elmhurst's site : The City is excited to announc...

Last week, I posted a little update to the new restaurant coming to the Elmhurst City Centre right across the street from the York Theatre .  At that time, I didn't know the name, but today we do: One Fifty One Kitchen and Bar.  There's that new sign you can see above hanging on the fence if you walk by the site and you can check out their site here .  The url is 151 Elmhurst, so maybe that's how people will type it when they search for the location instead of [one fifty one Elmhurst]?? The sign proclaims:  An exciting new restaurant concept celebrating the bounty of the Midwest.

That's pretty swoon-worthy, isn't it?  We found these doors at the Reuse Depot in Maywood.  If you're in the market for doors, go there.  You won't be disappointed.  It is the same place that has the stairs that I posted earlier this year and called 'the stairs of my dreams' .

 Recently, I went to check out the model at the Nitti Development on the site of the old Elmhurst Hospital .  Wanted to see what was going on with the homes, find a few ideas and just generally poke around.  One of the things that jumped out to me - besides the actual houses(!) - was this system they had set up in the basement.  It is called a Lifebreath Heat Recovery Ventilator. Check out the description from the little sign they posted on the wall below: "Fresh air is continuously circulated through a Lifebreath Heat Recovery Ventilator, which draws stale air out of your home while tempering and cleaning fresh incoming air.  The Energy Star-certified system recovers up to 81% of the energy from exhaust air that would otherwise be lost to the outdoors." So...anyone know what *exactly* that means?  Are these things good ideas?  Mandatory today?  Do you have one in your house?  Should a family install one of these things?

Back in July, I took a photo of the demo on the site of the new massive apartment complex being built on the west side of York Street, just south of Panera.  The City of Elmhurst has been calling this the "Hahn Street Project" for years, but Morningstar, the developer, is calling it Elmhurst 255. That crane out front has been lifting sections of this development into place for the past few months and now it looks ( from the sketch in this pdf ) that at least this section of it has topped out.  Let's call it about half of the building is up.  The entire first floor, which will be retail and maybe parking(??), is up, but I think they're going to build a bit more out closer to the street/sidewalk area when it is done. 192 apartments.  Seems like a lot, right?  But, if it works, won't it be nice to have even more foot traffic for downtown?

Just a bit over one year ago, I posted a photo of the new expansion at Silver Beach Pizza in St. Joseph Michigan here on the blog .  They were said to be adding 70 new seats to this place that is ALWAYS packed. On our trip earlier this year in January up to Coloma, we - of course - made a trip to St. Joe's for a little Garlic Greek goodness. While there, I took some time to peek up at the new upstairs addition.  It is a 21-and-older area, which...I'll be honest...I'm not sure what it means. As I said, this place is always packed.  Tuesday afternoon.  There's a wait.  Saturday night.  There's a wait.  So, the new 70 seats will certainly help, but I'm uncertain of the impact on us.  And..since this is *my* blog, this post needs to be about me, right? Well, since it is a 21-and-older section, that means we're not going up there.  We're only ever at Silver Beach Pizza with our kids, so we're not allowed.  But, I'm hoping that the host...

 If you head over to Downtown Elmhurst today, you'll find this enormous hole in the ground at the site of the old Plass Appliance building on York Street.  It appears that the plan for the "York Building" - which includes condos upstairs and retail on the first floor is moving forward fast. With the Plass building down, it sure does make that building that holds Nu Crepes look better/more accessible, right?  Hopefully, the design of the new York Building will make that walkway/alley a bit more pedestrian friendly.  That...plus the new garage back there should mean more foot traffic.

A few weeks back, we went to check out the models at the Nitti Development in Elmhurst on the property of the old Elmhurst Hospital site .  It is just a few blocks away from us and we were more than curious. There's been some criticism of folks about the development, but I think most of that is a case of the sour grapes.  When you go into the models, there's A TON to like.  The folks at Nitti have done a nice job of building quality homes and finished them really well with decorator-level touches all over.  The only downside it seems is that your house - while it will be REALLY nice - will look and feel just like all of your neighbors.  That's not common in Elmhurst, but it certainly is common in further out suburbs where entire new subdivisions spring up. We went into two of the models we both really liked the layout and floorplan of them.  One thing that stuck out was the upstairs layout.  Here's a photo of it.  Check out the circled part in...

We saw this little 'nook' built into a model home last weekend and everyone who was down there with us coo'd over it and thought it was 'sooo cute' or 'soooo darling'. It is a really nice touch and one that just takes a little bit of drywall, framing and trim.  Have to think it could be replicated in anyone's house as they're thinking about a basement redesign or basement rehab/construction.

A few weeks back, I posted the first photo of the 'changing skyline' of the Elmhurst City Centre from York Street.   But, I recently went down Addison Street and was confronted with a new 'look' of the parking deck from a new angle and had to take this photo you see above.  It certainly is pretty imposing compared to what was there (a parking lot).  The first section here went up really pretty fast as it appears they're mostly a bunch of pre-fab'd sections/panels.  There will be first floor retail/office, so I'm looking forward to seeing that part go up and see what it does to the downtown and in particular what impact it has on other/future growth along Addison Street.

See that structure in the middle of the photo?  That's a new 6 story (I think?) parking deck/office building going in.  This is the view from City Hall heading south on York Street. Exciting times for the downtown area and I'll always be rooting for downtowns to succeed.

The lot at the end of our block had some construction fencing erected late last week.  Looks like a new house is about to go up.  That makes the 2nd new construction home on our block in the past year.  Seems like - at least part of - the housing sector is coming around?

There's a few new houses going up in Elmhurst and as we drive through the neighborhood, it has been fun to watch them come together.  One of them - which is across York Street from us - has been going up fast.  Nat noticed that they had put up their siding and had chosen vertical red siding for the garage - making it look just like a red barn in their backyard.  The photo I took above is from the alley in back. Pretty stinkin' cute, eh?  I'd love a barn in my backyard, wouldn't you?

We finally finished installing all of the trim in the basement - including these baseboards in the bathroom.  Still plenty of work to do including most of the caulking and painting, but at least the construction phase of the space has concluded. There are (obviously) a few more touches like shower doors to finalize, so we'll get those things sorted soon.  Funny how projects like this go like nuts for weeks/months, but as soon as it is "good enough" to occupy, everything slows down.  Once we moved in and unpacked the toys it seems like I forgot that I had all this extra work to do.  At least with caulk and paint, I can do it in batches with one section at a time.   With Spring right around the corner, I have just a few months to get this done or else my attention will wander to the garden and backyard.  Time to focus.

It was just back a few months in August that the construction fences went up and I expected the old bungalow that was on the lot to be torn down.  Fast forward to this week, and this big house is going up fast.  They have the framing done and the roofers arrived to get started. They've made (in my mind) a mistake by putting the garage up front, but I'm not the guy buying the place.  We have an alley on our street and there's a lot of ways that you can improve the curb appeal by getting rid of that garage that takes up more than 50% of the view from the street. The listing has it at $899,900 with 4 bedrooms, 5 baths and 3700 square feet.  Nice house.  But, not my style.