Color your own adventure!!!

While i'm off to the monastery to hangout with monks for the weekend.....

...YOU have a say in what my house ends up looking like! For those of you who are somewhat techy, copy this image and paint it in with the pallet provided!

please make sure to use the Historical
Color Guidelines.

When you are finished, email them to me at scott.robichaud@gmail.com and I'll post them!

Shady Architects

My architect quit. Second time. I wonder if there is some class in architecture school like "how to flake out on your clients 210" or "stop returning phone calls 340".

The situation is that he wanted to do the whole operation without reporting it on his income tax. My bank requires a "waiver of lien" to cut checks to subcontracted work. (a very standard practice) and he didn't want to sign one so he dropped me. The waiver would of disappeared into a drawer and the irs wouldn't of been any wiser, but reporting income tax is his job-not mine.

His other concern was that he thought that the waiver of lien might alert his current employer that he was doing work on the side (which it wouldn't)

The great irony of the situation now is that if he wanted to recoup any of his losses he would have to sign a lien, the very thing he didn't want to do. Which in that case we might as well start working again.

Anyhow my time table is getting tight. I have until Monday to submit my paperwork for historical and 3 weeks to get the structural drawings done. I'm going to have to pull out an ace on this one. I'm going to have to put a call in to the only guy I know for absolute sure that will finish the drawings. My good friend Mr. DaMan.

Who is DaMan you ask?

I'M DA MAN!

It's been a while but I'm sure after a couple minutes with ye old drawing board and CAD I'll be back on track. The truth is I could of/should of done the drawings from the start. But I wanted some extra design insight and burden off my back so I could focus on construction. But at this point the direction is clear and pounding out the drawings shouldn't be bad.

He had produced 3 of the 4 elevations (though heavily inaccurate) they will suffice for the historical permits. A quick run to kinkos I used the "Mirror image" command and I had partially produced the opposite side of the house. A little white out and a few lines and I should be in business.

As for the structural I will pick up a house-cad program and push that stuff through. I was doing all the structural/framing design anyhow so it will go quick.

Bad day? nah. Some good, some bad. But you can be sure I'll be putting that money i'm saving towards a bigger garage.



In other news I had an excavation company out to quote me on replacing the water/sewer lines and I visited the window manufacturer, Kelly Windows, to ensure everything was in order to place my order.

Almost lost but found

After a productive week with visits from Andrew Andreas and my father for a little labor, Saturday was spent in search of a bathroom door in preparation for framing up the bathroom next week. Which led me to my circuit of 3 architectural salvage stores in Ypsilanti, Toledo, and Detroit. This is to visit Materials Unlimited,
Toledo Architectural Artifacts INC., and
the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit respectively.

A trip to Materials Unlimited normally doesn't yield anything. While they have some pretty nice items, they are all high end restored pieces that are overpriced. But honestly this Colonial Revival (cira 1900s) chandelier caught and held my eye. I will have to keep this in the back of my head if I want to shell out for it.

Down to Toledo for my favorite of the three stores. I found this door, in not bad shape. At first I thought it was a 1910ish arts and crafts door because of the 3 lower horizontal panels. But upon closer inspection there are Egg and Dart details under the window, something an arts and crafts door wouldn't be caught with. So it must be late victorian-turn of the century. It will be the bathroom door, and yes I know there is a window in it. My guests will have to not be shy.
Another interesting note about this door is that it has spacers on the top, bottom and side indicating that it spent time in 2nd doorway that was too large for it. Time for it's 3rd use in it's life!

I had to have this Victorian ball and spindle fretwork. A Victorian staple.


After those great finds I skipped going to Detroit. While it is my town, honestly the Detroit store is newer and has more junk then architecture. BTW Say goodbye to the old sewer and water supply!

I'm an idiot.

Or an evil genius. You choose.

Today I'm at the house alone and I'm pondering what my next task should be. At that point my eye catches the bathtub. It's upstairs and it's supposed to be downstairs. So I decide that I would attempt to wrestle said 300lb bathtub downstairs alone.


Either I have learned a lot about moving big objects during rehab, or I'm a lucky idiot. I put the tub on skids and rigged up a little belaying action. I don't know if it was the right friction on the stairs, or the tow strap or what. But it went so perfect that I was able to take this picture while holding on to the strap around my body with the other hand.


Other news? The floor is 70%+ Closed up. 100% at the site of the chimney accident. Also I have inventoried, denailed and cut every piece of lumber on site to useful dimensions....upstairs studs, downstairs studs, fireblocks and so on and so forth.

Another place, in another time. I'd know that face.....anywhere.

When you are a real tough guy you rarely cry. You have an emotional stronghold to defend your emotions. I cry on average once a year. Maybe this is so that man can be strong for his wife, or that we are emotionally callus or who knows, but today my invincible exterior was penetrated for a second.

I haven't been able to find a historical photograph of my house. Asking neighbors, looking in historical photo collections and contacting authors of corktown books have come up empty. Until today.

Today I visited the Detroit Historical Commission for the first time. This is to start getting my business together for my historical permit. Lo and behold, they had a slide photograph from 1985-the year corktown was designated a historic district.

The lady at historical brought the slides out with a magnifying glass. I put them to my eye and I got a lump in my throat. My eyes might of even got a little misty.





I was really surprised. I wouldn't of thought that it could of changed that much from the 1980's. It's only been 22 years, but my how my girl has changed.

Some interesting things to note:

The most noteable thing is that the ghetto brick is fully on the house and falling off. I thought my house looked pretty bad when I bought it, but I have to say it looks even worse in these pictures.

The upper center decorations are in tact! This will really help me replicate them to restoration.

The original front door is present. Although badly damaged it appears to be a simple 2-panel.

The lower rails were replaced with boards. While not original, the current lower rails look better then this. I plan to recreate the original lowers.

There is a shack/garage in the rear.

The front windows were boarded up, an erie reminder of the darkness of the time.

2 large trees are missing today, one in the front yard, and one on the side.

And one of the most prominent changes is the rear 2nd floor. The roofline has a dormer lifted out provide headroom on the 2nd floor in the back-This will help my case when presenting to historical that I would like to bump out the roof there. There is also a small diamond shaped window in the rear. The house seems to extend about two feet more then today in the back.

Also you can see the lights from tiger stadium in the background. I probably went to a game that year!

The strange part is that 1985 isn't a very old photo for a 147 year old house. But I'll take it.

By the way, I didn't actually cry. I was able to force the lump back down into my throat...and maybe my eyes weren't misty, I could of gotten something in them from the magnifying glass (wink).