Not a dog post.

So Brad has commented that I'm posting a lot about our dogs... Hehe... oops. I forgot this was supposed to be our home renovation blog. :)

So here's some super awesome stuff about our ongoing renovation!!

Right now, I'm working on finishing our drawings. We initially planned on doing a lot of the work over time, but now we're considering bidding the whole project out to knock it out in one fell swoop. We'll see just how much doing it all at once will cost us before we make that final decision... For all who are curious just what our plans are:

Plans in AutoCAD.

Interior Elevations in AutoCAD.

Ha. Okay. So you can't quite tell just what's going on from the screenshots. Basically, right now we have one 'finished' bedroom in the attic and the rest is raw space. We plan to add a bathroom and master bedroom, as well as fully updating the rest of the house. This may be better... Click the images to see 'em larger.

So, what do you think?

Helpers.

So we still haven't taken a good "finished" pic of the living room floor... BUT, I have good pics of my helper dogs ON the new floor!

Fat Rat.

Airlie Bear.

The Bear is getting BIG!

Sneezer and Fatty. My guard dogs.

Zorro, aka Sneezer, aka Sneeze Beez, aka Beezer, aka Zeez, aka Z, aka Smiles.

We've been dog-sitting for Brad's brother while he's on his honeymoon! This is Bella. 

And this is Cowboy. Cowboy likes to try to eat the cork floor. He's not such a good helper...

Sorry, Cows. I outed you.

Flooring

The floor in the living room is now laid. However, we have not put the urethane on yet because I nearly cut my thumb off (okay that's a bit of an exaggeration) when I was cutting the last piece. Luckily Jessica's first aid experience from when she was a life guard came in handy. 

  

We haven't taken a "finished" shot yet, but here is Jessica slaving away.

Go Cats!

Zorro and Rat are pumped for the K-State game on thursday!

Living Room Art

Last weekend, while taking a break from work and renovations I started to design artwork to be placed on our main living room wall. The sketches started as some sort of graphic representation of where Jessica and I are from, how we met, and how we’ve ended up in Chicago. However, I soon realized I was making this thing way too complicated and it was becoming very ugly. I pretty much started over with the aspects I liked and then showed Jess. Her eye and new vantage point was exactly what the design and my brain needed. The design then became this:

It is the state of Nebraska (where Jessica is from) overlaid on the state of Kansas (where I’m from) to create a conceptual version of the Chicago flag. Since I know nothing about sewing, Jessica is going to create the design as an actual flag. We’re then going to frame the flag so it doesn’t look straight out of a dorm room.

So... our roof fell off...

Well, part of our roof.

The wind gusts here in Chicago were major a few days ago... Our poor old house couldn't handle the pressure.

Looks like the new roof may be coming sooner than we anticipated.

Noguchi Coffee Table

Jessica’s mastery of Craigslist has paid off again. We just scored a Noguchi Coffee table (retail $1349) for $245.

Intro to Landscaping

My first year of college I debated entering Landscape Architecture rather than straight Architecture. As most of you are aware I ended up selecting architecture. As a result, I never had to deal with learning the names of thousands plants. Fast forward eight years, and I'm now undertaking this task.

Last week I researched perennials that are excellent in the Chicago's climate (most of which are native) and developed a list for the landscaping of the backyard. That list is as follows:

 

Short

Common Shooting Star - Dodecatheon meadia

Ozark Sundrops - Oenothera macrocarpa

Carpathian Harebell - Campanula carpatica

Yellow Corydalis - Corydalis lutea

Bloody Cranesbill - Geranium sanguineum

Blue Phlox - Phlox divaricata

Maiden Pinks - Dianthus deltoides

Medium Height

Canada Colombine - Aquilegia canadensis

Wild Geranium - Geranium maculatum

Hosta

Coral Bells - Heuchera sanguinea

Columbine - Anquilegia 'hensol harebell'

Lanceleaf Coreopsis - Coreopsis lanceolata

Dwarf False Goldenrod - Solidago spacelata

Sedum - Hylotelephium

Virginia Bluebells - Mertensia virginica

Tall

Blue Star - Amsonia tabernaemontana

Wild Sweet William - Phlox maculata

Obedient Plan - Physostegia virginiana

Black-Eyed Susan - Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii

Butterfly Weed - Asclepias tuperosa

Rose Mallow - Hibiscus moscheutos

Golden Columbine - Aquilegia chrysantha

Purple Coneflower - Echinacea purpurea

This back yard project originally wasn't going to happen for a little while. However, yesterday I was at Home Depot getting supplies for laying our cork floor and noticed that perennials were on sale... Two hours later I had a cart that looked like this:

If you're knowledgable about flowers, you'll notice I wasn't exactly disciplined in my purchases. I just couldn't pass up the mums and that orange Asiatic Lily. Plus, Home Depot only had the following flowers:

A type of Corydalis

A type of Phlox, but not the Blue Phlox

Hostas

Coral Bells

Sedum

Black-Eyed Susans

Coneflowers

By today our backyard looked like this:

Additionally, a few bulbs found there way into the flower garden. I'm thinking seeds from the remaining plants might just get scattered around in certain areas, but this is yet to be determined.

You also might notice our new "tree" (steel pipe) sticking out of the ground. This will be the location of our future birch.